Shelter from the Storm
by phoenixreal
Summary: Omegaverse. Ukitake runs the Seireitei Shelter, a safe place for omegas in need of help. Things are going well, and they have a lead to finally bring down the Espada Organization. Then, Ukitake ends up with an omega that belongs to Aizen himself. Renji/Ichigo, Shunsui/Ukitake, Yaoi, noncon.
1. Chapter 1

Jūshirō Ukitake sat at his desk looking over the latest statistics he'd gotten from his alpha, Shunsui Kyōraku. Shunsui and Jūshirō both worked for the Shinigami Crime Agency; Shunsui in the Omega Affairs Division and Jūshirō in the Seireitei Division. Jūshirō ran the Seireitei, a shelter and safe house for abused and neglected omegas. Shunsui had sent over the latest reports on their caseload, and as usual, the numbers were disheartening. Even as progressive as today's world was, omegas still found themselves often the victims of violent crimes and a disproportionate amount of sexual assault and abuse.

The population statistics were that there were around seven and a half percent who expressed as an omega by the age of thirteen. Alpha numbers were slightly higher at close to ten percent of the population. In those numbers, one in three omegas would experience sexual assault or abuse during their lifetimes. Of course, often the perpetrators of such things used the pheromone defense. That defense rarely worked these days, but occasionally an alpha could convince a jury that they were enticed into the act. It was frustrating beyond belief for anyone that worked directly with survivors of those assaults and abuses. It was even worse when there was a bonded pair in which such acts occurred because once bonded, an omega would rarely leave their alpha to break the bond.

Of course, alphas weren't the only perpetrators of such things. Betas, or the rest of the population, couldn't detect the pheromones released by either the alpha or omega, but omegas were often viewed as inferior as a general rule. The only thing that came of the situation was that a beta could not impregnate an omega because they didn't have the ability to knot, a necessary part of the process. Without the knotting, an omega was not able to trigger the proper internal process during a heat that caused the gestation process to even have a chance of beginning. Of course, there were ways around this. Contraception was available, both for the omega to take and barrier methods. There were also heat suppressants that were about ninety percent effective. That ten percent chance of them not being effective was the reason that many, like Jūshirō, took both heat suppressants and contraception on a daily basis.

Not all omegas had access to effective birth control and suppressants, though. That led to more than a few unwanted pregnancies. This was another of the reasons shelters like the Seireitei existed. They often worked with omegas who wanted to give their babies up for adoption as well as found medical services for them, which could include abortion in a certain timeframe from conception. This didn't happen often, as most omegas felt the instinctual drive to carry the baby to term, but in cases of incest or rape it was a viable option.

"Jūshirō, Shunsui is here," buzzed the intercom on Jūshirō's desk.

"Tell him I'll be there shortly," he responded as he pushed the button on the com.

He got up and put his jacket back on, sighing because he was always distressed when he read the reports that came from the Shunsui's division. He went out and punched in the code to open the inner doors. As always, there was a faint whoosh of air as the seal was broken. Then he went to punch in the code for the outer doors and came out into the entryway. The front of the shelter resembled a plain office, and if someone wasn't aware that the Seireitei was there, it blended in with the other offices that surrounded it. He smiled as he saw Shunsui standing near the glass windows at the front, as usual his pink kimono over the shoulders of his suit jacket.

"I didn't expect you today," Jūshirō said as he came up behind Shunsui.

Shunsui turned and smiled lazily at him. "I thought I'd surprise you with a lunch date."

Jūshirō felt his cheeks heat up as he heard the barely stifled giggle of his receptionist, Rukia Kuchiki. Rukia thought they were a very cute couple and was constantly telling him how handsome they were together.

"I didn't know you'd have the time after the reports you sent over," Jūshirō commented as he intertwined his hand with Shunsui's.

"I know, I have been a bit busy lately, but I did want to sit down to have lunch with you and discuss some of the information we've come across recently. About the Espada Organization." Shunsui's eyes sparkled as he spoke.

"The Espada Organization?" Jūshirō gasped.

The Espada Organization was forever one of the thorns in Jūshirō's side. Anyone, really, that worked with unfortunate omegas had come across victims of the Espada Organization. No one had been able to pin down the person in charge of it, and every time they came close to catching one of their leaders, they would slip out of their grasp, either through lack of evidence or legal rigmarole. The Espada Organization dealt in illegal and counterfeit contraception and heat suppressants as well and offered access to doctors that were less than reputable that would perform procedures for low prices. They dabbled in underground fighting rings, human trafficking focused on omegas, drugs for omegas and alphas specifically, and a few other things. Of course, Jūshirō was most concerned with their omega specific activities.

"Let me get my coat," Jūshirō said excitedly. To have news was a great thing especially after the reports he'd been reading this morning.

Shunsui led him out of the building onto the street, where no one would really think there was anything different about the small office they emerged from. There was a small, quiet café nearby that they both enjoyed for lunches called the Rukongai. It was run by a blond-haired man named Shinji Hirako. Of course, what both Shunsui and Jūshirō knew about Shinji was that he, and the business itself, was a front for the Shinigami. Shinji headed the Special Victim's Unit, so he was rarely at the Rukongai, trusting it to his Assistant Hiyori. All those that worked in the Rukongai were Shinigami members that had build undercover identities within the local area.

They entered and found it nearly empty. Of course, it was a little after lunch, so it was no surprise. Rose was on the door and sat them at a table where they were soon brought their drinks by Lisa. She took their order and left them to themselves.

"So, what is this about the Espada Organization?" Jūshirō asked excitedly.

Shunsui sighed. "You can't wait until we've had lunch?"

"No, you can't drop that sort of thing and not tell me about it as soon as possible," Jūshirō said with a glint to his eyes.

"Alright, alright. I can tell you before we eat. It isn't a lot, but it is something. We have a criminal informant, inside the Espada's highest tiers," Shunsui revealed with a smirk.

Jūshirō's eyes went wide because he knew the significance of that statement and how much weight it carried. "When did this happen?" he gasped.

"Recently. We had someone contact us and say they wanted out and were willing to deal. They didn't ask for much, just sanctuary for themselves and one other person. Easy enough for the Head Captain to grant," Shunsui went on.

"What does this mean for us?" he asked.

Shunsui knew he meant the Seireitei Division. "It means that we're going to know who is in control of the organization. It means we're finally going to put a stop to everything they're doing."

Jūshirō nearly had tears in his eyes. So many of the omegas at the Seireitei Shelter had been victims of the Espada Organization, either from being sold as slaves to botched medical procedures and contraception laced with drugs. That wasn't even counting the strange Omega Sickness that started a few years ago that Jūshirō swore was somehow linked to the Espada Organization. There was never any link, though.

"We're finally going to put an end to this," he whispered, looking up as Lisa brought their food to them.

He could hardly eat as he sat there, his stomach was aflutter with anticipation. He managed to get through the rest of lunch and back to the Seireitei again. As soon as he came in Rukia looked up and frowned.

"Did something happen?" she asked, turning the page in the novel she was reading.

Jūshirō nodded. "Something good. We may have a way to pin the Espada Organization. And soon."

"That's wonderful news!" she exclaimed and shut her book. "What happened?"

"We have a criminal informant inside, someone that wanted out safely. It is the first real break we've had on them." Jūshirō put his coat up by the door and smiled at her. "I'm going to be in my office. Even with this good news, there's still work to be done."

-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-

It wasn't like he hadn't wanted this in the beginning. Ichigo Kurosaki had been an intern at Las Noches Corporation. It started as a good thing, after all. Working for Las Noches was a big step towards independence that he wanted. He had loved his family, but they didn't understand what it was like for him to be born as an omega, and they never would. His father was an alpha and his twin sisters were both betas, but his mom had been an omega. He was sure that if she was alive, she would have understood what he was going through. But she had been killed when he was nine years old, so he she hadn't even known that her only son was going to be an omega.

"Kurosaki!" he heard. It sounded far away though. He blinked slowly and turned toward the voice.

"Yeah?" he answered.

"Boss wants you to come down and be on display, so get dressed in something nice," the voice said, and now he could see it was Grimmjow who had been sent to retrieve him. He just stared at him, though, not moving as his brain tried to process what he just said.

Grimmjow sighed, turning and walking over to the closet. He muttered something under his breath that Ichigo couldn't catch, but he imagined it had something to do with being annoyed at having to help him get dressed. It wasn't the first time he'd had to do this. He wanted to do things on his own, but he just couldn't do it anymore. No one could explain it, though, and he'd quit questioning why he lived in this constant state of head fog each day. It was just the Omega Sickness and he had to deal with it.

"Here, this looks like good enough," Grimmjow said, bringing over a floral-patterned kimono style dress. He didn't mind the dresses, though. He actually kind of liked the fact that he got to wear them.

Grimmjow grabbed him by the arm and hauled him up to stand. Ichigo stared at him a minute then shrugged out of the yukata he was wearing and let it fall to the floor with no thought that he was in a lacy set of underwear and thigh high stockings with a garter belt. He then helped Ichigo put on the dress that wrapped around him and tied.

"This wasn't in my job description," Grimmjow grumbled. He always made some comment about doing this stuff as being outside his job, and Ichigo couldn't blame him. He had no idea what Grimmjow actually _did._ He really didn't know what any of the men that he often saw working in the building did because most of them never were seen in public.

Grimmjow grabbed a pair of the shoes by the door and had Ichigo step into them. "Babysitting isn't what I get paid for," he mumbled this time. He glanced over Ichigo as he stood there. "Alright, you at least already got made up for the day. I take it Charlotte was by earlier?" Grimmjow said as he steered Ichigo toward the private elevator that led down from the penthouse.

"Yeah," he said slowly, hardly able to keep up with Grimmjow's words; he was speaking so fast.

After a short elevator ride, Grimmjow led Ichigo through a couple hallways and out into a big open room filled with tables and people. Ichigo couldn't take in that much information so he focused on the only thing important: Sōsuke. He was sitting at the long table in the front facing the other tables. He could see that Gin was on the side of him, and Tōsen sat next to him. The other side was an empty seat, and Ichigo guessed it was for him. He realized he was right as he was led over and pushed down into the seat by Grimmjow.

"Hope that's alright; I picked it out," Grimmjow told Sōsuke.

"Perfect, actually," Sōsuke said, turning dark brown eyes on Ichigo.

Sōsuke Aizen was the head of the Las Noches Corporation. Three years ago, he'd taken interest in Ichigo while the younger man was working as an intern. At the time, he was stymied by this man as old as his father trying to get him to go out. He didn't know he was the company owner or anything; he was just a well-dressed businessman who was dallying with one of the omegas in the mailroom. He ended up turning him flat down at first. But steadily, his advances became more insistent, and then he made him an offer that he couldn't refuse: one date for a chance to interview for a full-time position in one of the upstairs offices.

He didn't think about how wrong it was then, he was just focused on trying to better his situation. He was already struggling, and refusing his father's offers to let him live with him and his sisters. He wanted to be on his own, not living with them, and this was a way to get somewhere. And it wasn't a promise of a job, after all, it was just an interview. They went out on several dates over the next few weeks, and Ichigo thought he was quite a charming man. He didn't expect it to go anywhere, though. It was just the company head playing around with a lonely omega from the mailroom.

Then, he found himself in Sōsuke's bedroom after one of their dates, and he couldn't remember getting there. That was the beginning of the time skipping he started to experience that signaled the onset of the Omega Sickness. Sōsuke was regretful when Ichigo couldn't even remember what happened and had taken him immediately to see the company doctor, Szayelaporro Ganz. After extensive testing, he could find no other explanation for the strange missing time he experienced than the Omega Sickness, so he kept an eye on him, nonetheless. Soon, it began happening more and more, and his head would just feel fuzzy and disconnected. He told his father about it, and he tried to get Ichigo to come see him or another doctor he knew, but Ichigo didn't want to depend on his father.

Instead, he kept working at Las Noches until it became obvious he wasn't able to concentrate long enough to work effectively. That's when Sōsuke invited him to stay in the penthouse. He only used it now and then, he said, and there was no reason he couldn't help him out now that he needed it. Honestly, Ichigo had no real reason to turn him down. And at first, the penthouse had pretty much been his to do whatever he wanted to do. Then Sōsuke started staying there more and more often, and their relationship got closer and closer until Sōsuke was referring to him as his omega proudly in public. He had a closet full of nice clothes and all sorts of things to go with them. He just couldn't remember much after he did things with them on. He would constantly be bruised somewhere, and he could never really remember how it happened. But Sōsuke would take care of him; he was sure of that.

Now, sitting beside him at this table, looking around at people he didn't know, and would probably never see again, he wondered how much he would even remember of the night. He was so used to it now that it didn't seem strange anymore. Neither did the fact that Sōsuke for some reason had taken up with an omega half his age. His father had tried to tell him not to get involved with him at the beginning, but he hadn't listened. He had preferred to make his own choices about things like that.

"Welcome to our yearly Omega Convention. I would love to personally welcome each and every one of you, but alas that would take too much time. We have representatives here from all the major omega groups, and we welcome all of you. I hope that our little convention will offer you some good learning opportunities and chances to connect with others in omega centered businesses. I could go on, but you are all here to have a nice dinner, not listen to me all evening. Enjoy the dinner, and please, come and see me if you have any direct questions about Las Noches and our Omega Program." Sōsuke bowed slightly and sat back down.

He reached over and took Ichigo's hand. "How are you?" he asked softly.

Ichigo turned toward him and smiled a little. "Okay, I think. There's a lot of people here."

"Yes, yes. It's our big Omega Convention. That's why it was important for you to attend," Sōsuke said with a subtle smile on his face. "You do look lovely in that tonight." He leaned closer and whispered into his ear. "It will be lovelier to remove it after this dull dinner is over."

Ichigo felt his cheeks heat a little, but he didn't say anything. He looked up as someone sat a plate of food in front of him and one in front of Sōsuke. Ichigo stared for a minute, and the plate seemed to waver in his vision a bit. He shook his head and picked up a fork.

"Can we get a photo of you and your omega, sir?" a man asked with a big camera.

"Of course, here, Ichigo, smile for them!" he said and smiled. Ichigo smiled with him and blinked away the lights left behind in his eyes. He was getting dizzy from all of this stuff going on around him.

"Sir, sir!" another man with a camera. "How has the research been coming into the Omega Sickness that so many have been afflicted with in recent years?"

"We're putting everything into finding out what is causing our omegas to become sick with this malady. Ichigo, my own omega, suffers from the sickness, so people don't crowd him. He's having a good day."

The Omega Sickness was what it was called. A sudden onset that often occurred to omegas in their early twenties, the Omega Sickness had no known cure and no known cause. It was devastating for those that showed the symptoms, putting them in the care of their alphas entirely. It included a brain fog, losing time, and loss of concentration among other things. Not everyone suffered from the Omega Sickness, and there had been no connection made between the sickness and any of the drugs omegas normally took like heat suppressants and contraception. Others took the same thing and had no such problems. Still, a good ten percent of all omegas would suffer from the Omega Sickness for a time in their twenties. Then, it would simply go away one day, and they would be fine again, having lost several years of their life to the Sickness.

The Sickness was diagnosed by the symptoms alone, as there was nothing in the bloodwork that showed anything was wrong with those it afflicted. As a matter of fact, there was no sign whatsoever about who would develop it and who wouldn't. It had just started happening about four years before. No one had been able to come up with a good reason for the strange sickness.

"Sir, have you had any luck with the experimental treatments you've been trying?" another person, this one a woman, asked.

"We have been seeing positive results with some of the newest testing that we've been doing. Nothing close to a cure yet, but we have been seeing some symptom reduction in our human trials for a possible medication," Sōsuke told her with his usual smile.

"Can you give us any details on when it might see shelves?"

"Not yet, it has to pass Las Noches Corporation's quality control tests to be considered for public use," Sōsuke was sitting with an arm around Ichigo's shoulders as he stared mostly at his plate. He didn't remember eating anything, but it was obvious he had done so. He hated that this happened to him. He was even taking the experimental drugs that Sōsuke was talking about.

"Ichigo, how are you feeling?" a voice from behind him. He turned and saw Szayel had come over to the table to check on him.

Ichigo turned around, looking behind him and nodded. "I feel pretty good tonight," he told Szayel as Sōsuke talked to the reporters.

"That's good." Szayel handed him his meds discreetly. "Here you are," he said and smiled at him.

"Oh, thank you," Ichigo said and took them from him quietly. He took them with the glass of water sitting at his place and watched as Szayel left again.

He turned back and spent the rest of the evening smiling and saying hello to people he would quickly forget. There were a couple that he thought were interesting, including the head of their biggest rival, Kuchiki Enterprises. He thought he was quite a handsome man, and the man with him smelled wonderful to Ichigo. He swallowed, realizing that he must be an alpha because he was drawn the rest of the night to look at him. He was about his same height but was built stronger and broader than he was. He also had brilliant red hair.

"Ichigo, are you doing alright still?" Sōsuke asked as the night started to come to the end.

Ichigo peeled his eyes away from the redheaded alpha and turned back to Sōsuke. "Oh, yeah."

"You're not looking at someone else, are you?" Sōsuke whispered in his ear.

He felt his cheeks color a little, caught staring at another man. He shook his head. "I just noticed the bright hair color."

"Is that all?" Sōsuke asked, and to anyone else, he looked placid, but Ichigo knew better than that. He was angry at him. He probably was going to be in for a bad night if he stayed that way. He knew he could try and put him in a better mood, though.

Before Ichigo could answer, he felt Sōsuke put a hand on his knee under the table and squeeze it tight enough to hurt. That wasn't good. He stared at his hands, trying very hard not to be drawn into the alpha's allure, but before long, he found himself staring at him again. He tore his eyes away as soon as he realized it and bit down on his lip. He hadn't been around many alphas, so smelling one this close was a bit overwhelming.

"You're not able to keep your eyes off him. Do you want him so badly?" Sōsuke suddenly whispered in his ear.

Ichigo shook his head. "I can't help it. He's an alpha. I…I keep scenting him."

"Is that so?" Sōsuke said and Ichigo heard the sound to his voice. It wasn't a good thing.

-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-

Ichigo knew he was still angry when he shoved him out of the elevator into the penthouse. He stumbled, nearly tripping over his feet as he fell forward into the room. Before he could move any further, Sōsuke had snatched him by the back of the hair and yanked him toward the bedroom. He felt his breath hitch. He wasn't going to give him a chance to calm him down at all. He gasped for breath as he fell forward onto the bed an caught himself with his arms before his face slammed into the oak headboard.

"You had your eyes on that alpha from the moment he came near you," Sōsuke spoke with deceptive calm.

Ichigo looked up at him, trying to make his best innocent face. He didn't know if it would help, but he was willing to try anything at this point to avoid Sōsuke's wrath. "I'm sorry, it must be close to the heat again, I kept smelling him."

"Heat. Some excuse for pining away for another man. Haven't I given you everything an alpha could give you and more?" he snapped, pulling his suit jacket off and loosening the blue tie.

"Of course!" Ichigo said, feeling the fog trying to cover his mind again as he fought it. "You've given me everything I could ever want! I love you!"

The backhanded slap that came then nearly knocked him off the bed and split his lip. He put his hand over his face and stared at Sōsuke. At that moment, memories of times that this exact thing had happened came back to him and he started to breathe heavily. The reason he had bruises that he couldn't remember where they came from suddenly was very clear to him. For a few minutes, the fog over his mind seemed to clear up and he could remember nights like this.

"Sōsuke, you know I can't help the reaction to an alpha," he whispered hoarsely, trying to keep his composure.

"You should be able to control yourself. If you truly loved me, an alpha wouldn't matter," Sōsuke said again with a sneer to his voice.

"Please, I'm sorry," he said, looking at him with tears starting in his eyes.

"You're not leaving this room for two weeks, do you understand?" he hissed as he reached out and gripped his bicep too tightly.

He nodded his head slowly, eyes wide and searching for the slightest sign that this was over. He found none.

Sōsuke reached out and ripped open the front of the kimono he was wearing, sending the obi flying. Ichigo gasped a little at the sudden exposure. He shook his head and turned away from him, starting to get scared of him in this mood. He had never seen him this angry before, even when he remembered other times he'd been mad at him like this.

"Please, not now," he begged as Sōsuke's hands went to his shoulders, shoving the dress down off his back. He shivered at the cold air contacting his skin and swallowed, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Not now? Do you think you're in any position to deny me after tonight?" he growled, grabbing both his arms and shoving him to his back.

Ichigo knew he wasn't. It was his fault; he should have controlled himself better. He seemed to space out for a moment or two because he came back to find Sōsuke had pulled him up onto the bed and he didn't remember it at all. He didn't fight him because what was the point? He'd only get hurt more because he didn't have the strength to resist him with the Sickness. He found himself looking up into those dark brown eyes and finding nothing but contempt. He closed his eyes, wishing he could stop feeling his hands on him.

He jerked when he felt him slide into him. Then Sōsuke paused and leaned over him.

"You're starting a heat, aren't you? That alpha got you this worked up that it triggered your heat?" he growled into his ear.

Ichigo had felt warm the entire evening after he'd seen the alpha, but he hadn't realized it had triggered the start of a heat. He'd been on heat suppressants for so long, he didn't really think much about them. Once in a while, he felt the beginnings of one, but it always quickly faded, usually with some help from Sōsuke. He'd never minded it before. This was different. He became rougher and almost frantic with his motions until Ichigo wasn't sure if he could take it anymore.

"Please," he begged as he held onto Sōsuke's shoulders, trying not to cry out. "Please, stop!"

There was no response, he only continued, and then he started to get erratic in his motions. Ichigo whined as he felt him slam into him harder than before, and clamp his hands down painfully on Ichigo's hips, fingernails digging into the skin.

Ichigo lost a few minutes and then he felt Sōsuke pull him to sit up.

"You caused me to hurt you," he whispered, glaring at him.

Ichigo looked at him, eyes wide and hoped that he would forget this by tomorrow. He felt tears then, and he wasn't sure if it was from the pain he was in or the emotional turmoil in his gut. Sōsuke put a hand against his face.

"Two weeks," he said finally and stood back up, doing his pants up and grabbing his jacket. "I'll be back in two weeks. Don't leave the penthouse. If you need anything, call the desk and it will be brought to you."

Ichigo couldn't help the gasp as he realized what he was doing. He stood up and cried out, "Please, no, Sōsuke! I'm sorry!"

Sōsuke turned and slapped him again, this time hard enough that he did stumble. Ichigo watched as he calmly left the room, then left the penthouse. He sat still for a few minutes, how long, he wasn't sure, until he got up and poured a bath for himself. He sat there in the water until it was going cold. He didn't hear the door when it opened, so when the bathroom door opened, he looked up, hoping Sōsuke had changed his mind and come back. He hadn't; it was Grimmjow again.

"Yo, boss said to see if you needed any patching up for some reason?" he started, then stopped, staring at Ichigo's bruised face. "What the hell?" he muttered, walking into the bathroom to the side of the tub.

"It…It's nothing," Ichigo said, turning away from him and looking into the water.

Grimmjow reached down and tilted his head toward him. "He can't do this," he said finally.

"He can do what he wants, I'm his omega," Ichigo told him.

Grimmjow looked at him and shook his head. For a while, Grimmjow had been feeling that the work they were doing was wrong. He had seen what Sōsuke Aizen was really doing and had done things for the man. He couldn't count the times he'd come to get Ichigo that he was bruised somehow and would say he couldn't remember what happened. Grimmjow had suspected for a while now that there was more to it than the omega being clumsy. This only proved it. And now he had a choice to make. Or did he? Perhaps he already made that choice.

He got up and went into the bedroom, going to the closet and finding something nice to put him in. He wondered if the Boss even knew that he favored things with delicate flowers on them. He also bet that he didn't know that he only liked the loose dresses and yukatas at all. He also bet that he didn't know he liked it when Charlotte came and did his makeup and nails for him quite a bit. In fact, he bet he knew more about his omega than he did.

He pulled out the kimono style dress and went to the dresser to look for some underwear for him. All he found was the lacy, thin pairs. He sighed, grabbing a random pair and stopped by the bed where the sheets were smeared with blood. He stared for a minute, feeling the sensation in his chest that was so foreign to him. He shook it away and went back in the bath where Ichigo hadn't moved, still seemingly in a fugue state.

"Here, come on, dry off and get dressed," he said.

Ichigo turned to him and nodded, lifting himself out of the now cold water and taking a towel Grimmjow handed him. He dried off slowly, gently touching the lip that was still oozing a little blood. Grimmjow handed him the underwear first and steadied him as he stepped into it. He then helped him into the dress and tied it on him.

"Come on, I'm taking you somewhere," Grimmjow said, grabbing Ichigo by the hand.

"But he said not to leave for two weeks…" he said as he was led into the front room.

"I know. But I'm taking you to someone who can help you get away from him. Probably for the best so you won't be involved in what's coming," Grimmjow told him and pushed his shoes toward him.

Ichigo stepped into them and looked at him. "I don't understand."

"I know, and that's okay. You trust me, right?" he asked, tugging him toward the elevator again.

"Yeah, but Sōsuke said…" he started.

Grimmjow turned and growled at him, stopping him. "Sōsuke beats you when he feels like it, and tonight just proved that to me. You aren't his property; you don't _belong_ to him. You're going to go somewhere where he can't get to you anymore."

Ichigo didn't say anything, just followed him. They got a strange look from the concierge as they went through the lobby of the building. He opened the door to his car and he got in. Ichigo was silent as he got in on the driver's side and pulled out a phone.

"We're going. Now," he said gruffly as he started the car. "I'll be there in ten."

Ichigo had no idea where they were going as they stopped in front of another building and a woman with green hair came running to the car. She jumped in the backseat and Ichigo avoided looking at her. He could smell her already, and it was making his current situation worse as he flushed with heat.

"Ichigo, this is my sister, Nelliel. Nel, this is Ichigo. We're taking him to the Seireitei shelter." Grimmjow took off again, heading in another direction.

"Itsygo?" Nel said, chuckling to herself as she said it. "Oops. I can't say his name right. He's Aizen's omega, isn't he?"

"Not anymore," Grimmjow muttered as they pulled into a parking garage. He pulled out his phone again. "I'm coming in. I have two with me. I know what I said, but something came up. He needs to go to the omega shelter. Yeah, I'm at the meeting place. Okay." He put away the phone and Ichigo stared at his hands. His head was foggy, and he really wanted to go to sleep. At least Grimmjow had put him in one of his favorite dresses.

After about fifteen minutes, a pair of cars pulled in and parked next to Grimmjow. Ichigo looked up to see a man get out of each of them. Surprisingly, Grimmjow recognized Byakuya Kuchiki, one of Aizen's competitors. The other man was tall with a pink kimono over his shoulders. He wore a sugegasa style hat as well, which set him apart from the other dark-haired man.

Grimmjow got out an approached them. The one in the hat spoke, and Grimmjow recognized his voice as the one he'd spoken to already.

"I thought you were staying until something major occurred?" he said, frowning and looking over Grimmjow's shoulder to the car.

"Something came up," Grimmjow answered, glancing over at the car as well.

"An omega?" Kuchiki said, tilting his head to the side. "Wait, isn't that Aizen's omega that was at the convention this evening?"

"Yeah, well, I got tired of seeing him bruised up. Tonight was the last straw," he muttered, crossing his arms over his chest.

"I'll have my Jūshirō see to him," he said and waved at the car he'd come in. A tall, white haired man in a light-colored suit without a tie got out of the passenger side and came toward them. "I'm Shunsui Kyōraku, by the way," he said and extended a hand toward him to shake. Grimmjow took it and nodded.

Shunsui looked at Jūshirō. "One for you to talk to, my love," he said. Jūshirō nodded and went over to the car.

Ichigo jerked in surprise as the door opened and he found himself staring another omega. He could tell by his scent easily.

"I'm here to take you somewhere safe. What's your name?" he asked softly, kneeling beside the car to look up at him. "I'm Jūshirō."

Ichigo swallowed and nodded. "Um, I'm Ichigo," he said quietly. He blinked a little slowly.

"You have Omega Sickness," Jūshirō observed. "We should get you somewhere safe, will you come with me?" he asked.

Ichigo didn't know what to say. "I.. Sōsuke said not to leave for two weeks. He's going to be madder," he said finally.

"Don't worry about him. Is Sōsuke your alpha?" he asked, tilting his head to the side.

Ichigo shook his head. "He-he's not an alpha."

Jūshirō nodded and got to his feet. He reached a hand out to him. "Come with me, and we'll figure out how to help you."

Staring at his hand, Ichigo didn't know what to do. He finally nodded and looked up at him. "Okay."


	2. Chapter 2

Ichigo woke up rather late the next morning. He sat up with a start, remembering that Grimmjow had taken him away from the penthouse the night before. He looked around and found himself in a plain bedroom with a single bed. The covers were cozy and warm, and it had a nice pillow. He had come here last night, with the other omega, Jūshirō had been his name.

He ran a hand over his head and wondered what would happen now. Sōsuke would surely be mad to find out he had left the penthouse when he told him not to. What would he do? And who were these people that Grimmjow apparently knew?

There was a knock at the door that startled him a little. "Hello?" he called out.

The door opened and Ichigo saw that it was Jūshirō. He was wearing a similar outfit from the night before, a light-colored suit over a white button up shirt and no tie. He had such pretty, long white hair, Ichigo thought.

"Ichigo?" he asked as he came in to sit in a chair beside the bed. "How are you this morning?"

Ichigo put a hand to his head and smiled a little. "I feel a little foggy, but that's normal for me."

"Today, I want you to see our doctor," he said and Ichigo was suddenly nervous.

"Doctor?" he asked, knowing that being around others was a risk if he was entering a heat despite his heat suppressants. "But…I think I might have… you know…"

"You're perfectly safe here, Ichigo. This is an omega shelter. No one that works here is an alpha. They aren't allowed past the front entry of the office. Everyone here is either a beta or another omega. Even our doctor and nurse." Jūshirō's voice was so calming that he nodded at him again like the night before.

"Can you tell me what happened last night?" Jūshirō asked, brushing his hand over Ichigo's bruised cheek and eye. The bruise had turned stark purple now that it had completely become visible.

Ichigo looked at his hand. "At the convention. There was an alpha there. And I couldn't help being drawn to look at him because I smelled him so clearly, and I don't smell alphas too often. Sōsuke got angry at me, and he said if I loved him, it wouldn't happen."

"That's not true, and you know it. You couldn't help your reaction to an alpha at all," Jūshirō told him softly.

"And then… and then, when he, you know, was with me, he could tell it triggered a heat, and he got really angry and rough, and…" he stopped, worrying his bottom lip as he sat there.

"He hurt you?" Jūshirō asked.

"Not really, I mean, it wasn't that big of a deal, he just got too rough, and I'm a little sore, but that's all that it is, nothing really bad," he stammered out.

"Well, first we need to have our doctor check you over to make sure it's nothing really bad," Jūshirō said and held his hand out to him.

"The doctor?" he asked, wide-eyed. "You have a doctor here to check that sort of thing?"

"Of course, we do. He'll check you over to make sure you don't need medical intervention," Jūshirō said, smiling and waiting patiently for him to take his hand.

Ichigo hesitated but then took his hand. "I don't really need to see a doctor."

"Just to be safe," Jūshirō smiled. "There are a lot of things that can go wrong when someone is 'too rough' like that, and though it's not the most fun thing in the world, knowing that you won't suddenly get sick is a good thing."

Ichigo frowned as they walked through the hallway to another door. He looked around and noticed other rooms like the one he came out of. This one was different, though, the door was decorated with paper flowers and springtime decorations. He tilted his head to the side. The door said Dr. Uryū Ishida. Jūshirō knocked on the door lightly.

"Just a minute," came a voice from inside the room.

A few seconds later a man in a white doctor's coat that had silver framed glasses and black hair opened the door. He looked from Jūshirō to Ichigo and nodded.

"I'll get Inoue and meet you in exam one," he said and stepped out of the room.

"I-I like your door," Ichigo stammered, looking at him.

The doctor smiled. "My nurse decorates it every season. You should see it at Christmastime," he said and took off down the hall.

Ichigo put his hand on the wall and swayed on his feet a little. Jūshirō put a steadying hand on his shoulder. "Okay?" he asked.

"Just a little dizzy and foggy," he said with a sigh. "Nothing I'm not used to."

"I was lucky; I was already into my thirties when the Omega Sickness started popping up. It seems to be centered only on the younger population," Jūshirō said as he led Ichigo down the hall to another decorated door that had a plaque that read "Exam Room 1".

"Do I really have to do this?" he asked as Jūshirō opened the door to a room that looked like any doctor's office he'd ever been in before.

"I'll be right here with you, okay?" Jūshirō promised as he went over to the drawer and pulled out a gown for him. "Here, I'll let you change into this."

Ichigo took it from him and Jūshirō noted that his hands were shaking a little. Jūshirō put his hands over Ichigo's and smiled at him. "It will be okay."

Jūshirō stepped outside the room, pulling the door closed behind him. He waited a couple minutes until he heard Ichigo call out "okay" from inside the room. Ichigo had sat up on the table and put the pajamas that he'd been given the night before on the chair at the side of the room. He didn't look any less nervous.

"I-I've never done this," he told Jūshirō as he fiddled with the hem of the gown.

"Never? Not even at check-ups?" Jūshirō asked, frowning.

It was pretty standard to have this sort of exam at least once every few years. Just like women could develop cervical, uterine, and ovarian cancers, all omegas could develop the same types as well as cancer of the secretion glands. Regular checkups were supposed to screen for beginning signs of cancers once an omega became and adult, and before if there were any symptoms beforehand.

Ichigo shook his head. "Sōsuke took me to see Szayel, and he just gave me medicine for the Omega Sickness and my heat suppressants."

"Then this is doubly important," Jūshirō said, smiling at him in the calming way he had.

There was a knock at the door that caused Ichigo to flinch. Then it opened and the doctor he'd seen earlier came in with a woman in pink scrubs that didn't look much older than he was. She had long brownish hair and big gray eyes. She had a warm smile, he noticed, and by the scent he could tell she was also an omega.

"Uryū, Orihime, this is Ichigo," Jūshirō introduced. "Ichigo is a little nervous because he's never had this kind of checkup before."

The doctor cocked an eyebrow at him. "Never? How old are you?"

"Um, I'm turning twenty-two soon," he answered, blinking a little slowly. He was starting to feel a bit lethargic.

"Hrmph, you should have at least visited a doctor to have this done once you turned eighteen," Uryū commented as he grabbed gloves from the hanging box on the wall.

"You don't look much older than me, and you're a doctor?" Ichigo blurted out, then winced because he probably shouldn't have said that.

"I'm a resident. My supervisor is Dr. Unohana that is the head of the medical division of the Shinigami. I started college when I was sixteen," Uryū explained. "Now, do you have any family history of any importance? Any cancers or diseases that were in close relatives?"

"Not that I know of. My father is a doctor, actually. He runs a clinic here in town, and my mom was killed when I was nine years old," Ichigo said.

"Your father's a doctor and you haven't had this type of exam done? Why not?" Uryū asked as he sat down on a stool in front of the table.

"Um, well, I left home when I was eighteen to work for Las Noches Corp. I wanted to be on my own, so I didn't want him interfering, then I met Sōsuke and he took me to see Szayel when I needed a doctor for anything," he rushed through. "I just didn't know I was supposed to see a doctor about _that_ kind of stuff."

Uryū nodded. "Alright, since you've never had this kind of exam, I'll talk you through the process. It doesn't take very long, and it might be a bit uncomfortable," he said as he pulled the stirrups out of the end of the table.

Ichigo paled a little, swallowing a nervous giggle at the sight. The nurse put a hand on his arm. "Just relax."

"I don't know if I can do this," he said and looked over at Jūshirō. "I don't think I can."

"Ichigo, I know it's tough since it's the first time, but it is necessary. Dr. Uryū has to make sure that there's been no lasting damage to you after he got 'too rough' with you. And you also need it as a regular part of your health screening. Uryū has done this exam many times on many omegas. You are in safe hands." Jūshirō stepped forward and took his hand. "It will be over before you know it."

Ichigo nodded, listening as the nurse, Orihime was her name, helped him scoot down and put his feet up in the metal stirrups. He closed his eyes and tried to forget where he was when he felt someone touch his inner thigh. He jerked at the touch.

"Easy," Uryū said and pressed his leg to fall open so he could see. He flicked on a light beside him. "I'm going to insert a finger into you and feel around. It may feel strange at first."

It wasn't that he had never had someone touch him there, but this was incredibly embarrassing. He could feel his face burning. He squeezed Jūshirō's hand tightly.

"You're doing fine, Ichigo. Just relax and I'll be done very soon. You have a minor tear, though. Nothing major, but you will have to come see me if you notice any further bleeding. Your secretion glands are functioning properly, as it appears you're in a partial heat. I take it that you're on heat suppressants?" Uryū asked.

"Um, yeah, I haven't had them today, yet," he explained, still squeezing Jūshirō's hand tightly.

"That's fine. Alright, the worst part is over, now I'm just going to check your testes to make sure there's no problems there." Omega males were not able to produce sperm like alpha and beta males, but they still functioned like other males otherwise. After a second more of poking and prodding him, Uryū scooted back and pulled off his gloves. "Okay, you can scoot up and take your feet down now. We're all done."

Ichigo didn't have to be told twice as he wriggled himself up and pulled his legs down as quickly as he could. He was still flushed red. "This is supposed to happen every time you have a checkup?" he asked, glancing at Jūshirō with a displeased look on his face.

"Not every year, but every three or four years, more if there's a family history of reproductive or rectal cancers," Jūshirō told him.

"I'll let you get dressed again," Uryū said and stood up. "When you are done, we'll discuss heat suppressants for you." He and the nurse stepped outside.

Ichigo finally let go of Jūshirō's hand and nodded to him. "I just wear the pajamas for now?" he asked.

"Yes, until we can get you some clothing from the donation room," he said. "I'll step out with Uryū and Orihime."

Jūshirō went out the door and closed it behind him. He looked over at Uryū. "You said minor but your instructions indicated there was a possibility of more bleeding."

Uryū nodded. "It was obviously done with intent to hurt him. There's no doubt about that. It isn't a terribly bad tear, but still enough of one to keep an eye on."

"Okay," Ichigo called from inside the room.

Jūshirō opened the door and they all went back into the room. Ichigo had dressed and sat down on the end of the table again. He was swinging his feet a little above the step. He looked up as they came back in.

Uryū sat down, adjusting his glasses and he picked up a clipboard behind him. "Okay, do you remember what heat suppressant you were taking?"

"Um, no, it was whatever Szayel was giving me. I never asked for the name," Ichigo told him. "Before that, my dad got my heat suppressants for me, and I never really paid any attention to which ones he gave me."

"That's alright, we'll just start you today on one that I normally prescribe. It might not stop the current heat from coming on since it may be a different medication. We can provide you with the necessary supplies should your heat fully manifest," Uryū marked down something on the clipboard.

"Oh, okay," he said, wondering what sort of supplies that meant. "I've been on heat suppressants since I was thirteen and expressed as an omega. I-I've never had a full heat."

Uryū sighed. "Well, you may experience one if this is not the same medication you were already taking."

"I-I don't know what to do if I have one," he said, looking between Uryū and Jūshirō.

Jūshirō put a hand on his shoulder. "Don't worry, we'll help you through it. I've been there before. The first one you have is kind of scary, but it is nothing to worry about."

"Is this all because I scented that alpha?" he asked Jūshirō. "Is that why I'm having a heat now?"

Jūshirō nodded. "Sometimes being around alpha can trigger a heat to start, especially if it's close to the time it was supposed to happen anyway."

Ichigo nodded, swallowing hard. "What… what do I do if I start a full heat? How do I handle it?" he asked, starting to worry.

Jūshirō smiled at him. "Why don't we worry about that if it comes to that? It may not come into fruition this time. For now, why don't you come out and meet some of your fellow residents?"

"Oh, okay," Ichigo said, slipping off the end of the table and looking at him.

Jūshirō led him out into the common area where there were a couple of other omegas were seated around. Ichigo still felt somewhat flushed and hot, but he just hoped that it would fade quickly. Jūshirō walked over to one with longish brown hair and a kind looking face. He was sitting in an arm chair reading a book. "Ichigo, this is Shūkurō Tsukishima. He's here because he's had a bit of trouble with his alpha."

"Hello," Tsukishima said with a small smile, reaching out to shake hands with Ichigo.

Ichigo shook his hand. "Um, you were having trouble with your alpha? That happens?"

Tsukishima nodded. "My alpha, Kugo, he began to suffer from a nasty habit of snorting Adderall."

"Adderall?" Ichigo asked, looking at Jūshirō. "What's that?"

"It's a drug used for hyperactivity in people with ADHD, but it is also a amphetamine and can be used recreationally," Jūshirō explained.

"Oh, what happened? If you don't mind me asking," Ichigo said, looking a little sheepish at the question after he asked it.

"Kugo started acting very erratically. Like he would wake me in the middle of the night to talk about random things. He would also try to get me to snort Adderall with him. I refused, of course, I didn't want to have the things happen that he did. He got to where he would just randomly move my things all around the house, so I never knew where anything was. He'd stay up all night and repeatedly reorganize our movies or music files on the computer. It was getting a bit scary." Tsukishima paused and smiled over at Jūshirō. "But I had heard about places like this. I knew I needed to get away from him someplace safe, so I came here."

"Oh wow," Ichigo said, nodding. "Have you talked to him since you came here?" he asked.

"I've called a couple times. I gave him the ultimatum that he has to get himself clean or I won't be coming back, bonded or not," Tsukishima commented, looking down at his hands. "I do miss him, but I doubt I would have stayed safe in that situation. What brought you here?"

Ichigo shifted a bit uncomfortably. "Um, well, I wasn't with an alpha. I was with a beta, and he might have been doing bad things, but I don't remember a lot of them."

Tsukishima smiled at him again. "Omega sickness?" he asked.

Ichigo just nodded sadly. "Yeah, for the last couple years."

"I had it for a couple years, too. It was strange, being able to remember the things that happened after it went away. Living in that fog was a strange sensation for so long," Tsukishima told him.

"Yeah," Ichigo confirmed. "Um, it was nice to meet you!"

"Nice to meet you, too, Ichigo," he responded and went back to the book he was reading.

Jūshirō led Ichigo over to the sofa where there was another omega with longish, wavy brown hair. "Ichigo, this is Rose Ōtoribashi. He also works at the Rukongai, a local café."

Rose looked up at him and smiled. "Hi, nice to meet you," he said, putting out a delicate hand.

"Same," Ichigo responded, shaking his hand. "What are you here for? If it's okay to ask," he said, looking a little worried about asking.

Rose smiled. "I had an abusive alpha. It took me a while to get away from him, but since I've been here, I've been happier. Luckily, we'd never bonded completely, so it wasn't as hard to leave as it would have been otherwise. You?"

"Um, kinda the same, but I didn't have an alpha. He was a beta," Ichigo explained.

There was a knock on the doorframe at the front of the room and Ichigo looked to see two shorter omegas, both were blond haired. One had vibrant purple eyes and front teeth that were kind of big, and the other had green eyes nearly obscured by his hair. The one with purple eyes was holding some kind of lizard in a pink tutu. Ichigo tilted his head to the side and stared for a minute as the two came into the room.

"Oh, Ichigo. I'd like you to meet Yukio and Wonderweiss," Jūshirō said as the pair approached them. "Wonderweiss brings Fuwa here to see the residents now and then and Yukio is his brother."

"What is it?" Ichigo asked, staring at the creature that Wonderweiss was holding. It looked like some sort of lizard.

"He's a bearded dragon," Yukio informed him with a smile. "Want to touch him?"

Ichigo blinked, interested and reached out to touch the lizard. He jerked a little when it moved but he smiled because it just kind of looked at him.

"He's nice," he said as he petted the small creature.

"Very nice," Wonderweiss echoed with a grin.

"Wonderweiss and Yukio help out around here. They have their own alphas that wait for them out in the front while they bring their reptiles back to see everyone here," Jūshirō explained. "They have an interesting family history that brought them to become a part of Seireitei."

"Oh?" Ichigo asked, still touching the bearded dragon.

"We're half-brothers, actually. We had a rough upbringing before we were old enough to be out on our own. It's a fascinating story, at least that's what people tell us. There was a documentary done about it, even," Yukio said with a bemused grin. "There were some magazine articles, and I even wrote a book about it."

"Really? It was that interesting?" Ichigo said, now seemingly holding the bearded dragon, but for the life of him, he couldn't remember exactly when he took the creature.

"Fuwa likes you," Wonderweiss commented as Ichigo stroked the head of the small lizard.

"Yeah, our parents were a little on the insane side. We practically raised ourselves. They were successful business people at one time, but they became completely paranoid and delusional. They bought into every conspiracy theory there was. They believed in the illuminati, Reptilians, dangers of fluoridated water, chemtrails, and they were anti-vaccine." Yukio paused shaking his head. "Wonderweiss and I being autistic only made things worse."

"You're autistic?" Ichigo asked, frowning. He would have never guessed.

"Yeah, I've learned to assimilate very well. Wonderweiss needs a little help now and then, but not too much. Even though Wonderweiss was more adversely affected than I was, he always had to protect and take care of me from a young age. Our parents were well off, so on the surface, everything looked fine, until it began to deteriorate into worse and worse conditions," Yukio explained, reaching out and petting Fuwa in Ichigo's hand. "Everything wasn't too bad when we were younger, but they progressively got worse. They had sworn off all modern medicine and started practicing traditional Chinese medicine and taking herbal supplements for everything. There was junk everywhere in the mansion we lived in. They boarded with windows up to keep imaginary foes outside, and we ended up having no running water."

"What did you do?" Ichigo asked, interested in the story now and thoughtlessly petting the bearded dragon.

"Well, we took up the second floor of the mansion and our parents were on the first floor. As they became more paranoid and more cut off from the outside world, it got to be easier to sneak out. We had to sneak out if we really needed anything. While I was outside the house, I ended up filing for emancipated minor status and guardianship of Wonderweiss. When social services came into the house, they couldn't believe what they found. There was garbage, bags and jars of human waste, and tons of vermin that had taken up residence. They'd decided that there had been a nuclear war and the outside was uninhabitable." Yukio shook his head. "It was sad, really. They were emaciated and hairless they were so malnourished and had taken no care of themselves. Wonderweiss and I had kept the upstairs as clean as we could, so much it was like a different house altogether."

"How did you manage to live like that?" Ichigo asked, still petting Fuwa as he listened in rapt attention.

"Well, when things got really bad, we realized we were on our own. We stayed upstairs, and I had convinced them early on to give me control of my bank account. I would add money to it every now and then. When things were at their worst, we didn't go down the stairs. Instead, we had a rope ladder and built a pulley system to get things we needed inside. With no water, I bought a camp shower and toilet for us to use." Yukio shrugged. "A little ingenuity goes a long way."

"Did you find out why they were like that? Did something happen to cause them to act like that?" Ichigo wondered.

"It actually turned out that those herbal supplements and remedies they were taking were full of toxic substances and they had been poisoning themselves for a long time."

"Wow," Ichigo breathed. "That is amazing. What do you do now?"

"Oh, I took over my father's business and I make money as a computer programmer. Overall, I'm pretty successful. Though, we both have to deal with society as a whole and the way they look at us and our alphas."

Ichigo tilted his head to the side. "What do you mean by that?"

"Well, you know, the stereotypes that go along with people sometimes. Riruka, my alpha, is a female alpha. There's all kinds of stereotypes of female alphas being abusive amazon types. Riruka is nothing like that, though she is a bit strong willed, that's for certain," Yukio explained.

"I've only met one female alpha and I was too scared and nervous at the time to really find out anything about her," Ichigo commented, not noticing how he was still petting the lizard.

"Yeah, and Wonderweiss here has Luppi as an alpha, and we had to deal with people thinking that Luppi was molesting him or something. The whole idea that 'mentally disabled' people can't have a relationship idea that some people have. That and Luppi doesn't look like your typical alpha male. He's very androgynous looking, and while assertive and I'd say quite smug, he's not domineering," Yukio explained. "His family, though, didn't like it and he's severed ties with his father's side of the family because they bought into the whole alpha male stereotype thing, even suggesting that Luppi needed therapy to make him more masculine! Anyway, the only one in his family with his head on straight is his father, so that's the only one he keeps contact with now."

Ichigo nodded slowly. "Wow, I didn't know there were so many different types of alphas and omegas. There weren't any really in my school; I was one of only a couple omegas, and I was never close to any of the alphas since they were all sports types. I just kinda thought they were all like that."

Jūshirō patted Ichigo on the shoulder. "There is a wider variety of people out there than you would imagine, Ichigo. Oh, and Yukio also helps fund the shelter. He often leaves that out."

"Oh, you don't have to tell everyone," Yukio said with a dismissive wave of his hand.

"Fuwa likes you," Wonderweiss chimed in, getting Ichigo's attention again.

"Oh, um, here, you can have him back," Ichigo said, handing the bearded dragon over to Wonderweiss. "Strange pet to keep."

"Luppi and Wonderweiss have several reptiles. They've helped Wonderweiss a lot since they started keeping them. His favorite is Fuwa, there. He likes to dress him up and take him for walks. Luppi has an emerald tree boa named Trepadora." Yukio smiled as Wonderweiss took the reptile over to see Rose.

Ichigo was starting to feel a little light-headed, though, as he stood there. He blinked and looked over at Jūshirō. "I think I need to go to my room again," he said slowly.

"Of course, this is a lot to take in at once," Jūshirō assured and gestured for him to follow him back to the room he'd been in. "Do you need anything?"

"No, I'm fine; I just need to lie down for a while. I'm feeling a bit fuzzy, that's all," Ichigo said with a slight smile.

"Alright," Jūshirō said and shut the door behind him.

He let out a slow breath and was even more worried than before. He headed back to the break room to grab a drink out of the juice machine. He looked up to see the tall Sado come into the room. "Oh, Sado, you're on today?"

"Yes," Sado said with a smile. "I'm doing lunch today."

"Oh, could you take a tray to our new resident, Ichigo? Room six?" Jūshirō asked with a smile back at him. "He's afflicted with the Omega Sickness and feeling a bit poorly right now."

"Sure, I'll take it to him," Sado said and disappeared into the kitchen to begin work on lunch for everyone.

Jūshirō himself was feeling a bit off. He wondered what was causing it. Perhaps a being around Ichigo as he went into heat was triggering his own to surface. He hoped not. He'd been rather lucky and not had even a partial one for the last year. His own heat suppressant seemed to work relatively well. He walked into his office and sat down, putting a hand to his head. He supposed that he couldn't avoid the pheromones forever. He picked up his phone and dialed Shunsui's number.

"Yes, my love?" came Shunsui's voice smoothly over the phone.

"Hi, I was just calling to check in," Jūshirō said, trying to conceal his slight discomfort.

"How is your new resident?" he asked.

"Adjusting. I wanted to know how you plan to handle him?"

Shunsui was quiet a moment. "How do you think we should proceed?"

Jūshirō sighed. "I don't know if you'll get him to press any charges against Sōsuke Aizen. He can't come into contact with any alphas at the moment; he's in a partial heat that may become a full one."

"Do you know what triggered it?" Shunsui asked, and Jūshirō could hear him writing something down.

"He encountered an alpha at the convention he was at with Sōsuke Aizen," Jūshirō informed him slowly, figuring that Shunsui would know the underlying meaning of his words.

"He must have been compatible; just any alpha wouldn't trigger a heat in an omega on heat suppressants," Shunsui observed.

"That's what I was thinking. He's never been bonded, having been with a beta since he was young. He probably doesn't even know how to act around an alpha in the least. He said that Aizen became angry with him because of the alpha affecting him."

"Is that what lead to him losing control and hurting him?" Shunsui asked, pausing in his writing.

"From what he says, yes. But he had older bruising on his arms and hips. This wasn't a singular event," Jūshirō told him with a deep sigh.

They were both silent a moment. Shunsui finally sighed on his end. "How likely do you think he would be to testify against Aizen if we managed to make a case against him?"

"You're going to put an abused omega on the stand that has acute omega sickness?" Jūshirō asked flatly.

Shunsui clucked his tongue. "You're right, of course. Most judges won't take his testimony seriously. We have the one that brought him out, this Grimmjow, to confirm that he had nothing to do with Aizen's illegal activities. But that is only one person to testify against him. We need more concrete proof that he's actually behind the Espada Organization."

Jūshirō had seen the tape from the initial interview with Grimmjow already early this morning. Shunsui had been the one to conduct it. He'd been quite willing to turn over any information that they needed, including a few ways to try and link Aizen to the Espada. It was a prickly issue, though, because one man's word wasn't enough to convict Aizen.

"I've got to go get everyone ready for lunch," Jūshirō commented, looking up at the clock on the wall. "I'll see you when you pick me up this afternoon."

"Good-bye, my love," Shunsui said and Jūshirō hung up the phone.

-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-

Sōsuke Aizen was not pleased. He stood in the penthouse apartment and stared at the empty rooms. He couldn't believe that this had actually happened. He was really gone. Completely and totally gone. And Grimmjow was the one that took him out from under his nose. He straightened the jacket and walked back to the private elevator, taking it down to the conference room where the others waited.

"Aizen, sir," Barragan said as Aizen came into the room.

"Barragan," he acknowledged as he came in and sat down at the head of the table. "Have we gotten any information about the location of Grimmjow or Ichigo?"

"We haven't seen or anything about Grimmjow since he entered the underground parking garage on 8th Street last night at about eleven pm," Starrk said with a yawn at the end.

Aizen was quiet, and deathly calm, it seemed. "Can anyone give me a reason _why_ one of my people, one of my most trusted people, in fact, has turned on me and left?"

There was a silence all around. "I think he just couldn't do it anymore," Tier offered. She, too, had been having her doubts for a while now. She didn't speak them, though.

"Couldn't do _what_ exactly? All I asked of him was to be the head of my security. He was the one I trusted with _my_ omega. Why would he take _my_ omega and leave with him?" Aizen said in a still calm voice.

Nnoitra shrugged. "Maybe he didn't like our other activities."

Aizen glared at the tall, one-eyes man but said nothing for a minute. "Do you have any idea where Ichigo might have been taken?" he said, staring around the table.

"My guess?" Barragan said. Everyone looked to him as the oldest among them and the one that had been in the "business" the longest of any of them. "He took him to a shelter."

"Why would he do something like that?" Aizen snapped.

"Perhaps your tendency to beat the shit out of him when you want to," Nnoitra said bluntly. "I mean, don't get me wrong, not faulting you for it, he's your omega and all, but some progressive types these days are against putting one of 'em in their place when they need it."

Aizen made a first on the table and looked around. "I want him found. I want Grimmjow dead, and I want anyone he was ever close to dead."

"The only person that Grimmjow had any connection to was his adopted sister and she, too, has disappeared," Ulquiorra informed him stoically.

"Why is all this happening right now? Szayelaporro, how is the next stage coming along?" he turned to the pink-haired scientist, changing the subject entirely.

"We are about to finish the human trials of Omega Relief. Should everything go well, we'll have product for the shelves in less than six months." Szayel adjusted his glasses. "I think that we've seen nearly one hundred percent results in the trials at suppression of the symptoms. Of course, Ichigo was in the placebo group. We saw no improvement in symptoms among that group in any of the trials we've conducted."

"And distribution of the illicit version of Omega Relief?" Aizen asked, looking toward Zommari.

The dark-skinned man nodded. "On schedule to be leaked to the distributors in the next two weeks. The effects will be amplified by the drug mixture the medication is combined with. We should see a demand for Omega X relatively quickly."

"Good, good," Aizen said. "At least something is going on track. But Grimmjow is a problem if he's gone to the Shinigami. What are the chances that he's turned?" he asked, looking around the table.

"It is the most likely scenario," Ulquiorra said without an expression. "He must have encountered a Shinigami agent or sought one out. We've been under scrutiny ever since Barragan was charged and acquitted of drug trafficking."

"Yes, that was an unfortunate circumstance, but my place in things didn't come to light. Grimmjow knows my identity and if he turned, he may tell them everything he knows. We must silence him at all costs. I want everyone who is not occupied with Omega Relief and Omega X production to be on this. I don't care what they normally do, I want them on finding him." Aizen glared around the table. "I want Grimmjow dead and I want my omega back."


	3. Chapter 3

Grimmjow sat alone in the room. He wasn't sure what had been happening outside since he came into this place. He hadn't seen Nel either, and he just had to have faith that they were doing as they said and protecting her. He knew that his life was forfeit once he left the building with the omega.

The door opened and the guy he'd talk to, Captain Kyōraku. "Good day, Grimmjow," he said as he came into the plain bedroom that they'd given him.

"Yo, man. What's going on?" he said as he stood up to shake hands with the other man.

"Just checking in and had some questions," Kyōraku said as he sat down in the chair beside the bed.

Grimmjow sat back down on the bed and nodded. "Sure, what do you need to know."

"You're saying that Sōsuke Aizen, head of Las Noches Corp, is the head of the Espada Organization and has been orchestrating all of this illegal activity behind the scenes," Kyōraku said, adjusting a little in the seat.

"Yeah, I've been working as his head of security for the last couple years. I got into it through a buddy of mine who knew that he needed muscle. I'd been working for some small-time crooks and had a bit of street cred so he let me work for a year before he made me head of security," Grimmjow explained. "I didn't know how deep things ran until I got into things."

"So, can you give the names of the others involved in the organization?" Kyōraku asked and pulled a small recorder from his pocket and clicked it on.

"Yeah, so I guess there was me, and I handled security. Mostly my people worked inside the main building where he kept his penthouse apartment. There's Tier Hallibel. She's above board for the most part, I mean, she don't participate in anything illegal. I don't even know for sure that she knows everything that goes on. She's the COO or something for Las Noches Corp. Good woman." Grimmjow paused as though thinking for a moment. "Then there's Coyote Starrk. He runs the arms acquisition and distribution. Not a big division because Aizen just started dabbling in the field. This freaky ass bastard named Ulquiorra Cifer works as a cleaner. Um, well, assassin I guess you'd call him. Barragan Louisenbairn runs the brothels and sex workers. He's got a lot of people that work for him like I had. Nnoitra Gilga runs the human trafficking, using his status as an alpha to cower any of the omegas we find. Zommari Rureaux handled the drug trafficking and is really the one who is the most important right now…"

"Why's the drug division so important right now?" Kyōraku interrupted as Grimmjow trailed off.

"Well, that's a story in itself. But the short of it is that they're perfecting a new drug, called Omega Relief at Las Noches. That's the legal drug, for the Omega Sickness. But the illegal version of the drug, laced with addictive elements and amphetamines is called Omega X. They found a way to counteract the symptoms. Their researcher, Szayelaporro Granz, is a real genius when it comes to designer drugs," Grimmjow explained.

"Do you know when they're going to be pushing to distribute this Omega X?" Kyōraku asked.

"No idea, human trials on the Omega Relief drug aren't even finished yet, so the company can't put out the drug for legal sales. There's a push for more revenue so that he can expand his business into some other areas. Like he has Aaroniero Arruruerie, Aaron is what he goes by, is getting into the gambling business. And the final guy they got is Yammy Llargo. Yammy's a big bastard and is running illegal underground fighting for alphas." Grimmjow looked around again. "Yo, this is important and all, but what about my sister and that omega that came out with me? All three of us are good as dead, or worse, in that omega's case."

"Both are safe. Nel is here in the safe house in another room and you can see her later today. As far as the omega goes, no one will find him where he is now. He's in the Seireitei, our omega shelter. He's being seen to."

"Ya don't get it. They'll find him, and us. They've got people in your organization," Grimmjow informed him.

Kyōraku blinked. "There are moles in the Shinigami?"

"Yeah, of course there are, how do ya think he's stayed hidden for so long? I'm the first crazy bastard to try and turn on him completely," Grimmjow said, starting to look a little nervous.

"What was it that made you decide you wanted out?" Kyōraku asked, looking at him seriously. "Leaving such an organization isn't something to take lightly."

"Oh, believe me, I don't take it lightly. I have a lot of reasons, namely my sister and the danger I put her in by being with Aizen. I didn't trust him not to use her against me. He likes to use family to control people when he can. But the stuff with that omega was the tipping point."

"Tell me, what was it about the omega that pushed you over the edge?" Kyōraku wondered, tilting his head to the side to look at him.

Grimmjow sighed. "Well, it was just—I've seen what has been going on. I mean, hell, half the time I had to help him get dressed when Aizen sent me to get him. He's always got some sort of bruise on him; arms, hips, ribs, you name it, I've seen him bruised there. Every time I've asked he says he doesn't remember clearly how he got them. He seems seriously affected by that Omega Sickness, which I think Aizen has something to do with…"

Kyōraku's eyes widened a bit. "What do you mean?"

"Just it's awful convenient that this Omega Sickness happens and after a few years he happens to find an effective medication for it? There has to be some connection," Grimmjow explained.

"There have been all kinds of studies into those who have it as opposed to those that don't; no connection can be made. They all take various medications. There is no correlation." Kyōraku had looked over the study results many times and the different aspects they had tested.

"No, see I bet there's something someone's missing and it all goes back to Aizen. There's something similar about the omegas that are affected. I dunno anything about the science shit, so I have no idea what it could be. Someone's just not getting something about it. Aizen hates omegas anyway, alphas too," Grimmjow said with a shrug.

"Why would he hate alphas and omegas? And if he hates them, why did he have an omega for himself?" Kyōraku wondered.

"He always complains about them, especially that omega he took. I think he's jealous or something because of the disdain he talks about them with. He uses alphas like Nnoitra but when they aren't around he has nothin' good to say about them," Grimmjow told him. "As far as why he took an omega, I think it has to do with the fact he wants what the alphas have and it's his way of taking from them."

Kyōraku wondered about the reasons behind someone having such hate toward alphas and omegas. "I see. I want to thank you for coming forward with all this information. It will be useful," he said and clicked off the recorder, returning it to his pocket.

"You'll take care of that omega, right?" Grimmjow asked as he stood up. "I mean, he's not safe if your people know where he is. He already knows."

"I'll see if I can't put someone on him that might be able to keep an eye on him. I'll see if we have someone in the area that can go by and talk to them in person."

Kyōraku left the room where Grimmjow was and headed to the front of the safe house. If they had a mole, none of them were safe. He pulled out his phone and dialed the head captain as he walked.

"Sir, we have confirmation via Jaegerjaquez that there are plants inside the Shinigami."

There was a long pause on the other end of the phone. "Move to high priority. I'll dispatch Captain Soi Fon to move Jaegerjaquez and the sister to a secret location. Instruct Captain Kuchiki to extract the omega from the Seireitei and move him to his own private facility. No one else except Captain Ukitake is to know of any of this plan."

"Yes, sir. Right away," he sighed, looking at his phone for a second before he sent a text to Jūshirō and called Kuchiki.

-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-

"But you can't be here, you know that," Rukia said as she glared at Renji.

"I've got orders to pick up the omega in the Aizen case, straight from your brother in law," he said with slight exasperation.

"I'll contact the captain," she said with a huff as she pushed the button on the intercom. "Captain Ukitake, Lieutenant Abarai has come to pick up Ichigo?"

"Yes, I am sorry I forgot to inform you that he was coming. I'll get Ichigo for you."

"Captain, but Renji's an alpha, is that the best idea?" she asked cautiously.

"I know how to handle myself around an omega, Rukia," Renji said with a sigh.

Before they could do anything else, though, the building's fire alarm suddenly started going off. Renji frowned, looking at the flashing light above Rukia's head. Rukia covered her ears and grimaced.

"A drill?" she yelled over the din of the alarm.

"At this time of day?" Renji replied, looking up to see the door open and he was immediately hit full force by the smell. He'd just told Rukia he could handle himself around omegas, so he couldn't let it get to him, even if it was the most attractive scent in the world to him.

"Renji!" Ukitake yelled as he came out of the doorway leading the orange haired omega that Renji had seen at the dinner they'd gone to.

The others were coming out too, but he'd caught that omega's scent again, and her was having trouble concentrating. Ukitake pushed the omega at him.

"Get him out of here! Quickly!" Ukitake said as he came up to Renji.

Renji grabbed him by the arm and pulled him toward the door, ignoring the spike in pheromones that was coming off the omega. He ha to distance himself and get him out of the place before something happened. He bet the alarm had something to do with the people looking for him. They got to the door and amid the blasting alarm, Renji heard the cracking sound of a shot being fired.

"Get down!" he yelled and pushed the omega down to the floor and followed him just in time to see a chunk of the door explode.

"Watch it!" the omega yelled, pinned to the floor now by Renji.

Renji just pushed his head down and looked out the door. That shot was headed for his head. He fumbled in his chest holster for a second and pulled his handgun. The omega froze on seeing it immediately. Renji hoped that whoever was out there would be gone by the time the alarm stopped going off. They were probably banking on them being vulnerable during a fire alarm. Ukitake came over and knelt beside him.

"Have you got somewhere off grid?" he asked, holding his own gun in his hand.

"Yeah, I have a secret location, it's—"

"Don't say anything, just get him there! Go through the back!" Ukitake said as he stood up and rushed over to escort the others out the door. Luckily, there were no more shots.

Renji got up and pulled the omega to his feet and they ran back through the two sets of doors. Renji looked up to see a sign for an exit pointing down a hallway. He looked at the omega, who should have really been scared after being shot at but found him just staring at him. Renji nodded toward the exit and they headed down a couple of short halls until they came to the fire exit. The door was alarmed, of course, but the system had already been set off.

He pushed open the door and immediately dodged after he heard another crack and a saw a piece of the wall explode.

"Shit!" he exclaimed and pulled the omega back behind the door.

There was another shot over the sound of the alarm and a piece of the door exploded. They weren't being very careful if they were trying to retrieve the omega alive. Renji poked around the door and fired off several shots in the direction that they had come from, hoping to deter anyone from coming for them again. He looked at the omega and noted he looked annoyed rather than scared. He growled under his breath. Great, he was cocky. Renji grabbed him by the arm again and took off down the alleyway. He was hoping that they were aiming for him and not the omega.

They came out of the alley to see that everyone from the building was standing out in front of it. Luckily, the crowd was a good place to lose any tails. They dashed through the milling people and came out the other side, where Renji could see his car. If they could just get there, he could get the omega to the safe house. The sound of the alarm was a little less loud outside as they ran to Renji's car.

"Get in!" he yelled hitting the button to unlock the SUV.

The omega scrambled in on the other side as he got into the driver's side. He had the car started and was pulling out into the road. He got into traffic and managed to avoid any vehicle tails. He kept watching behind him as he navigated to the highway.

"Where are we going now?" the omega asked, looking at him.

"A safe house that's off the grid," Renji replied, not looking at him, only concentrating on getting to the house.

"Where is it?" he demanded.

"You'll see when we get there," Renji responded, starting to get annoyed.

"What about everyone at the shelter?"

"They'll be fine, now just shut up until we're safe," he grumbled.

The omega huffed and crossed his arms over his chest. "Whatever," he growled and looked out the side window.

Renji glanced at him and sighed. He had to get an oppositional omega. Most the omegas he'd been around deferred to an alpha when they were around one. Of course, he'd get stuck with the one omega that didn't automatically listen when told something by an alpha. Most omegas were submissive immediately when they were around an alpha. Most omegas would have been scared witless by being shot at. Most omegas weren't apparently this omega.

They drove for a while until they arrived at a parking garage. They drove to the top of the garage until they came to a parking space that was beside a van. Renji pulled in and looked over at the omega.

"We're switching cars," he said as he opened the door to get out.

"Just go in this one! No one is following us," he told him but got out of the car as he was speaking.

"We don't know that. You get in the back," he said as he opened the door for him.

"Whatever," he grumbled as he crawled into the backseat.

Renji snorted and grabbed a ball cap that was in the passenger seat. He pulled his hair up and covered most of it with the hat, having the tail come out the back of the hat. He adjusted the rearview mirror and turned on the van.

"Just stay down," he said as he pulled out, leaving the parking garage once again.

"Where are we even going?" the omega asked, but he was at least listening and staying down.

"To a safe spot. No one else knows of it except for me and my boss," Renji said with a glance in the rearview again.

The omega snorted. "I bet it's not as safe as you think."

"You're mouthy, ya know that?" Renji snapped at him.

"What's that supposed to mean?" he asked, sounding annoyed.

"It means ya ain't been around alphas enough to know what to do," he muttered.

"If you mean I'm supposed to do what you say just because you're an alpha, I don't think so," he told him.

Renji sighed. "Ya can tell you were with a beta," he said as he turned into another parking garage. "You should do what I say because I'm trying to keep your dumb ass alive. In case you failed to notice, they're not being too careful who they shoot at."

The omega harrumphed. "If it weren't for you, none of this would've happened."

"What do you mean by that?" he asked as he pulled into a parking spot near an elevator.

"Sōsuke wouldn't have got mad at me if you hadn't been at that convention," he said, sitting in the back seat with a scowl across his brows.

Renji arched a brow at him. "Don't blame me for your beta deciding to beat the shit outta ya. That's not my doin'. He should know better than to take an omega out and not expect them to react to an alpha."

The omega snorted. "Well, _you_ shouldn't have been at an _omega_ convention," he grumbled, glaring at him.

"It's not like it was a convention _for_ omegas. It was a convention _about_ omegas. Almost everyone involved in the whole thing is a beta, anyway, because alphas aren't allowed in most of the organizations that work with omegas directly," Renji informed him as he opened the door. "Now come on."

The omega looked displeased but crawled out of the back of the van. Renji grabbed him by the arm and he pulled away from him.

"I can walk fine."

Renji rolled his eyes a bit and gestured for him to go ahead toward the elevator. Renji punched in a code and the door opened.

"After you," Renji said and indicated he go into the elevator.

The omega snorted and walked into the small elevator and Renji got into it. The sudden overwhelming smell was almost too much for Renji because he smelled really good again, just like he had at that convention. He ignored the blood rushing south and concentrated on just making sure he kept him safe. That was his job, not anything else.

They came out into a penthouse apartment with wide, open windows along one side. Renji had never been here before, but he knew it was Captain Kuchiki's properties. Of course, his boss didn't even know which place he took him to. There was a large living room and off to the side a kitchen and dining room. A door in the back led to the single bedroom in the place. Renji guessed he'd be sleeping on the sofa.

"What is this place?" the omega asked, looking around.

"Just one of the boss's properties. Bathroom's over there by the bedroom door. There should be some yukatas in the closet. Hopefully you won't mind wearing those until we get the go ahead that we can leave," Renji informed him.

"When can we leave?" he asked, turning back to him.

"No idea. My instructions were to get you to an off the grid safe house and wait for further instructions. Could be here a day, could be a month," Renji shrugged an took off his jacket to hang on the coatrack by the door.

"Do you have to wear that?"

Renji looked at him and frowned, then realized he was talking about the chest holster and his gun. "I'm supposed to be keeping you safe from Sōsuke Aizen, remember? This place is as safe and off the grid as they come, but you never know what will happen. Now, what was your name again?"

"Ichigo. I'd think you'd remember it from a couple days ago," he said with an annoyed look.

Once again, the overwhelming scent took over Renji's senses and he breathed it in for a moment before he got hold of himself again. He swallowed and looked at him seriously.

"I'm Renji. Please tell me you're not starting a heat," he said.

Ichigo blushed a little and looked away. "I don't think so; I've been on heat suppressants since I was thirteen. I wouldn't know if I was. But they said I might have one. I don't think so."

 _Great_. Renji sighed. Just what he needed. An omega in heat and not able to leave the place. This was going to get interesting. He'd be lucky if he didn't end up in bed with him like this.

-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-

Ichigo didn't know what to think of everything that had happened so far. He was worried about everyone in the shelter, for one thing. He had to hope that everyone was okay. Then he gets stuck with an alpha. Not just any alpha, but _the_ alpha that caused all of his problems. Not to mention he was cocky and expected him to obey without question. He was feeling strange though as he sat in the bathtub. He was glad at least they were somewhere with a decent kitchen and bathroom.

There was a knock on the door. "You alright in there?"

"Can I take a bath in peace? I'm fine!" Ichigo snapped. Couldn't he have a damn bath without dealing with this alpha?

"I was just checking on you," he grumbled as he walked away from the door.

Ichigo sighed, sliding down into the bath until just his nose was out of the water. He hated feeling strange like this. It was different from the fog he'd been living with for the last few years. He wondered if Jūshirō was right and it was a heat. He wouldn't know about what it felt like since he'd never had one. He bit down on his lip, feeling that same strange warmth that he'd been feeling every since he'd encountered that alpha. He didn't want to feel it, but he felt it, nonetheless. He wanted to do something and he didn't know what to think. He'd had partial heats before and he always got through them with Sōsuke. Now what was he supposed to do?

He stood up and got out of the bathtub slowly. The water was turning cold. He sat down on the toilet lid and felt a wave of heat go over him, flushing his face. He knew what he wanted to do, he wanted to go out there and tell that alpha to fuck him until he couldn't stand. He wouldn't do it, though. He couldn't let the hormones take over. He wouldn't. He wouldn't. Oh god, he thought to himself, wouldn't he?

He grabbed a yukata he'd taken out of the closet. It was really…manly. He supposed that it would be manly since it was a man's apartment. He did miss his clothes from Sōsuke's.

He came out of the bathroom to see that the alpha was seated at the dining room table, staring at his phone.

"What are you doing?" Ichigo asked him as he came into the room to sit down at the table.

"Checking the news. There's a report of the alarm being set off at the building the Seireitei is in. Of course, it doesn't say the Seireitei. Just the building," the alpha told him. "Seems like there's no suspects on who set the alarm off. Nothing about the shots being fired, of course. The Shinigami would have kept that quiet."

Once again, the smell nearly overwhelmed him. It was the same scent as at the convention, and no matter how much he tried to push it away, it still burned through his senses. That same flush of heat overcame him, and he nearly had to run back to the bathroom.

"Dammit, will ya stop it?"

"Stop what?" Ichigo replied as he sat down across from the alpha. He thought his name had been Renji.

"Releasing pheromones," he grumbled, shifting in his seat.

"It's your fault!" Ichigo snapped, crossing his arms and huffing a breath through his nose.

Renji looked up at him and arched a brow. "Look, all I did was save your ass."

Ichigo chewed his lip for a second, having very vivid images of what he wanted to be doing right then running through his head. He didn't even know this guy and all he could imagine was being fucked into oblivion by him. He was somehow glad he'd never had a heat before if it was this bad. He wasn't even fully in a heat yet.

"It was your smell that set it off," Ichigo responded.

"That's just ridiculous. The only way an alpha can trigger a heat in an omega is if they're compatible bond mates," Renji said without looking up from his phone.

"Well, you explain it then. I've been on heat suppressants since I was thirteen! I don't even know what a heat is supposed to feel like!" he exclaimed, tightening his grip on his own body. He was starting to shake a little.

Renji did look up now and stared at him. "What the hell do you mean? You ain't a kid, are you? They didn't stick me with a brat?"

"No! I'm twenty-two. I just have been on effective heat suppressants. Until yesterday," he added the last as a near afterthought.

"What do you mean, until yesterday?" Renji asked, laying the phone down on the table slowly.

"Well, I didn't know which one I was on, so they were going to start me on one, but it might not have been the same one I was on before. And with the Omega Sickness, I haven't really done much of my own healthcare. I didn't have to think about it." He looked away again, rubbing his hands down his arms.

Renji let out a long sigh. "Great. That means the chance of you going into a full heat are nearly guaranteed now. And we don't have any supplies for that sort of thing. My boss is a beta."

"Supplies?" Ichigo said, glaring at him. "What kind of supplies do you all keep talking about? Jūshirō said the same thing, that he could get supplies I needed if I started a heat."

"Are you really that unaware of your own body?" Renji asked, truly taken aback by what he was saying. "You seriously don't know what to do?"

Ichigo licked his lips and chewed on the bottom again. "No."

Renji stood up and went into the kitchen. Ichigo could hear him rummaging in the cabinets. He came back out with a couple of cups and teabags. He set them down and went back into the kitchen just as a kettle started to whistle. Ichigo wondered when he put that on. He came back and poured water into the cups and returned the kettle. He came back with a bowl of sugar and sat it down.

"Thank you," Ichigo said as he took the cup, hand still shaking slightly.

"Things might be rough for the next few days unless I can get you to someone else. I don't think I can, and I don't have anything for you to use. I promise, I won't touch you. It may get hard, but I do know how to control myself, even around an omega in heat." He paused, sipping his tea. "Though this will be the first time for me as well."

"What? You've never been around an omega in heat?" Ichigo sputtered, looking up at him with wide eyes. "How do you know anything if you've never been around one of us?"

Renji narrowed his eyes. "I know that I'm capable of controlling my own dick," he said with a glare at Ichigo. "I never have bought the 'pheromone defense' some asshole alphas try to get off rape charges with. There's no reason for me to think that I should be any different."

Ichigo stared at him, a little more nervous than before. He was locked up with an alpha, and that was perhaps the most frightening thing in the world for an omega. It didn't matter how nice and moral he was, once his own body started producing the stronger pheromones to attract a mate, there was no real telling what would happen. The "pheromone defense" was something that worked in courts sometimes. There was a reason for that.

"Don't look so scared. You were just being shot at and didn't flinch, but you're scared of being alone with me?" Renji stated.

"I'm not scared!" Ichigo snapped, glaring at him now. "I'm not scared of you. I can take care of myself."

"If that were true, I wouldn't be here," Renji pointed out.

Ichigo pursed his lips and stared at him with an annoyed look. "If I weren't sick, I wouldn't need anyone's help!"

"But ya are. And until you get rid of the Omega Sickness, you'll be unable to completely control your own actions, and who knows what would happen to you. You were Sōsuke Aizen's omega. He's going to do everything he can to take back his property."

"I'm not his property!" Ichigo looked at him again sharply.

"Oh, try telling him that," Renji said, sipping his tea again and looking at him for a long time. "He took on a Shinigami stronghold just to get yer dumb ass back."

"I'm going to the bedroom," he said and pushed back from the table to stand up.

Unfortunately, his head decided that now was not time to stand up. A wave of dizziness came over him and he fell to his knees hard. He somehow felt hands on him, and he fought them for a second, confusion coming over him about where he was.

"Hey, easy," he heard and breathed in a calming breath. The smell was enough to relax him immediately. "Come on, let's get you to the bed."

The world seemed to fade in and out for a minute, and he found himself nestled in warm covers. He hummed in appreciation as he hugged a pillow to his chest. It felt nice and he was suddenly so very tired.

-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-

"So, he got him out?" Shunsui asked as they stepped into their apartment.

"Yeah, Abarai will take care of him. I'm a little worried about putting him with an alpha, though. I mean, anything could happen with them being closed up alone, and him probably starting his first heat," he muttered.

"You smell amazing," Shunsui said and nuzzled into Jūshirō's neck. "I think being around that omega going into heat started you one."

"That's ridiculous. I'm on heat suppressants," he said trying to dismiss it.

"Doesn't mean they work all the time, and you smell really ripe," Shunsui slipped one hand down the back of his slacks, sliding his fingers against him. "Hmm, you're wet."

"What?" Jūshirō asked, but not trying to get away from him. "I can't have one now! There's too much to do!"

"Looks like we're both calling off tomorrow," he said, nibbling on his collarbone.

"But I can't, the Seireitei!" Jūshirō tried, but his resistance was token at best.

"Will be there when you come back. Nothing is going to change overnight. They'll have to scout out new locations for the Seireitei to be moved to now that the location is known, and that'll take days." Shunsui moved his hands around and undid the front of Jūshirō's pants, letting them slip off his slender hips to the floor.

"But we haven't even gotten into the apartment, Shunsui!" Jūshirō complained, overwhelmed with the scent Shunsui was giving off already. If he had doubted that he was in heat, he didn't now because he felt the flushing rush of warmth that started below his belly button.

"Alright, come on, then, we'll go to the bedroom," Shunsui said reluctantly letting go of Jūshirō and pulling him by the hand to their room.

Shunsui shucked his jacket and started unbuttoning his shirt. Jūshirō sat down on the bed and watched him, seeing him reveal the broad expanse of his chest. Just the sight set Jūshirō's heart to beating faster. As much as he said he didn't want to have another heat, there was a part of him that enjoyed the primal and visceral about it. The more Shunsui disrobed, the more the heat built in him like a furnace in his chest.

"Ah, Jūshirō, look at you. You're almost drooling, my love," Shunsui said as he slipped his pants off his hips.

Jūshirō's eyes were already glazed over and he felt the sensations building. "Shunsui, please…" he whispered.

"Yes, my love, yes," Shunsui said as he put a hand against Jūshirō's face.

Jūshirō took a gasping breath as Shunsui's hands moved to unbutton his shirt slowly. Before long, they had both removed all their clothes an were kissing each other furiously. Jūshirō couldn't get enough of Shunsui's smell and taste. It was addictive and felt so right. Shunsui, likewise, was enamored of Jūshirō's smell and taste.

"Please!" Jūshirō finally said, tiring of the kissing and light touches. He could feel the dampness underneath him on the sheets.

"Please what, my love?" Shunsui asked as he kissed Jūshirō's neck gently.

Shunsui knew only one way to make the gentle Jūshirō curse and that was to tease him mercilessly when he was in heat. Never otherwise did a foul word leave the man's lips. He slid his hand down and gripped him, stroking him firmly a few times.

"That's not what I want!" he whined, and Shunsui knew exactly what he wanted.

Shunsui moved to press himself against Jūshirō, stroking them together. As was usual, as an alpha, Shunsui was quite a bit larger than his partner. Jūshirō's size was normal for an omega, average for anyone. Still, he whined deep in his throat when Shunsui began to grind against him.

"Aw, my sweet Jūshirō, what do you want?" Shunsui asked again, stroking them deftly with one hand.

"Fuck me!" Jūshirō finally exclaimed, nearly yelling.

"As you wish, my love," Shunsui breathed and slipped his hands down on the outside of Jūshirō's hips and adjusted him.

There was no time for any further hesitation. Once Jūshirō started cursing, it was time to do as his needy omega asked of him. He slipped down and slammed forward, sliding into him smoothly without pause. Jūshirō's head fell back and he grabbed onto Shunsui's shoulders. His legs flexed around Shunsui's body as he trusted him entirely not to let him fall off the bed. Shunsui's strength amazed Jūshirō especially since he was not small by any means.

"So full of you," Jūshirō whispered biting down on his lip as Shunsui worked in him steadily increasing his speed.

"Yes, my love, yes," he muttered, holding carefully to Jūshirō's hips to keep him in the precarious position on the side of the bed. He knew the next time, he'd lay him completely on it so he didn't have to hold up his weight.

It didn't take long for Jūshirō's body to react to him and he came suddenly between them. Shunsui gasped, feeling his body clamp down on him, and felt the knot starting to swell as he went over, filling Jūshirō with his own essence. Jūshirō moaned, low and long as he felt the pressure of the knot swelling inside him.

"Shunsui, what if, what if…" he started.

"Shh, my love, what if is for later," he said as he leaned over and kissed him soundly while they waited for the knotting to dissipate. But not before both of them went over the edge a couple more times each.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity to them, Shunsui was able to pull back. This time he pulled Jūshirō up and pushed him onto his back on the bed. Shunsui crawled over him, laying sucking kisses along his collarbone.

"Definitely calling off tomorrow," Shunsui whispered against his skin.


	4. Chapter 4

"Everything is fine, I assure you, captain," Rukia said, and Jūshirō could hear the smile in her voice. This was the first time he'd had to call off for heat days, and he still didn't like it. This was why he took heat suppressants but it appeared being around Ichigo had triggered a full blown one. That meant that in all likelihood, Ichigo was definitely going to have his first. That, more than anything, worried Jūshirō.

Shunsui ran a hand over his back and slid it around to start pawing at him again. He grabbed him by the wrist to stop him, even though his whole body was screaming at him not to stop him. He chewed his lip for a moment.

"Alright, just—call me if you have any problems with the move. Has the new place been secured?" he asked, feeling Shunsui's other hand slipping underneath him again. He bit back a yelp as he slipped two fingers into him.

"Of course, of course, as I said, no need to worry. We're handling everything just fine. We'll see you when you come back. Hopefully tomorrow?" she asked.

Now, Jūshirō was trying desperately not to moan as Shunsui stroked his prostate with deadly precision. "Um, yeah, I should be back by tomorrow. I'm already feeling better," he said, squeezing Shunsui's other wrist as hard as he could to no avail.

"Alright, take care. And tell Captain Kyōraku hello for me," she said, and Jūshirō imagined her smirking.

"Alright, thank you, Rukia," he said, tapping to end the call and putting his phone back down, finally releasing a deep moan that he had been holding back. "Shunsui, you're terrible," he muttered.

"Hmm, I couldn't wait. You were taking too long. A full heat is a rare treat for me," he said as he pulled his hand back to thrust his hips forward and press against Jūshirō again.

Jūshirō merely moved to accommodate him as he slipped inside again, perhaps the third time already today, he thought. But the symptoms were starting to fade now. The insistence from the night before and the morning was gone, and his body wasn't producing the amount of secretions it was. It was still enough that it was more than comfortable for Shunsui to not use any outside lubricant.

"You're still hot inside, my love," Shunsui commented, nipping playfully at the back of Jūshirō's neck.

"You're so embarrassing," Jūshirō said, hiding his face in the bed and stifling sounds that were trying to escape his throat.

"Ah, but you adore that about me," he responded, thrusting slowly into him and caressing his chest.

"Ahh," Jūshirō exhaled, gripping the sheets again. He pulled his leg up to his chest, rolling toward his stomach from his side, with Shunsui following him over and now pinning him down from behind. "It's too much, I don't know if I can stand it much more," he whined.

"I think you'll stand a lot more, my dear."

Shunsui felt him growing closer, though. When he was in heat, it didn't take long for him to climax, and it didn't take much for him to climax multiple times before he was exhausted by it. The pheromones helped make sure that everything went that way, keeping their arousal levels high enough to go several times in one day. It was all to ensure the highest likelihood of conceiving a child, of course.

After another hour or so, they laid in the bed together, snuggled close to each other. Jūshirō laid on Shunsui's arm and put his head in the hollow of his shoulder. He idly played with his chest hair as he lay there.

"You're thinking again, aren't you?" Shunsui said finally.

"I'm just worried about Ichigo. You know how hard it is to resist and omega in heat. What if Renji can't do it?" Jūshirō wondered.

"I don't think you have to worry. Renji can take care of them both. I'd be more worried that Ichigo couldn't handle the heat by himself," Shunsui pointed out.

Jūshirō nodded. "If he can't, he might ask him. Ichigo hasn't been on birth control. He's at more risk of getting impregnated than I am."

"You worry too much about what ifs, my love," Shunsui said, kissing his forehead softly. "Cross those bridges when they get here."

"I guess you're right," Jūshirō said with a sigh.

"Do you want to take a nap before dinner?" Shunsui asked, smoothing a hand through his hair softly.

Jūshirō nodded. "Yeah, I think so," he said as he let his eyes drift closed.

-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-

The new safehouse was much smaller than the last place they have been. However, here, they were at least together. The place was a small house outside of town that was equipped with a hidden basement room for them to hide. The short, dark-haired woman, Soi Fon, had brought them here, and now remained upstairs with her second in command.

Down in the basement, Grimmjow and Nel sat together at a small table in the windowless room. She looked over at him with a sad smile.

"Do you think that omega is safe?" she asked.

"I hope so. They seemed to take the threat that there were moles in the Shinigami very seriously, so that was good," he commented, picking up the glass of water he was drinking.

"Do you think _we're_ safe here?"

Grimmjow sighed and shook his head. "Not at all. He's gonna find us. I just know they won't be able to stop him. My word isn't enough to arrest him, so they've got to find some hard evidence. No one is going to believe the head of Las Noches Corp is the head of the Espada Organization without proof."

"But you've given them everything they need, right?" she asked him as she stood up to get a soda out of the small fridge in the room.

"I've done what I can, but with me getting out the way I did, who knows what they managed to hide from everyone else," Grimmjow pointed out.

Nel sat back down with the soda and nodded. "There's no safe place for any of us. Not really," she said with a sigh.

They both heard the click-clack of the trap door above them opening. The ladder dropped down, and the petite woman who had brought them to this place was coming down the steps. She dropped to the floor and nodded toward them.

"Got word that they're still looking for you two. Seems like he's got everyone not working on this drug he's putting out is trying to find you and the omega," she explained.

"What about the omega? Is he safe?" Grimmjow asked, worried about him because he knew Aizen wouldn't stop until he found him.

She sighed. "Unfortunately, he's off grid. No one in the organization knows where he's been taken, and we have no new information on him."

"Hopefully that means Aizen won't find him," Nel commented, looking at her. "Anything on what's to happen with us?"

"Right now, we're just trying to keep you safe. This safehouse should be out of the way enough that most the organization and whoever is in it giving information out don't know about it," she told them.

There was a thump overhead and all three of them looked up. "What was that?" Grimmjow asked, standing up slowly.

"I don't know," Soi Fon said and moved over toward the ladder where it was still pulled down.

"They found us," Nel whispered, looking at Grimmjow slowly.

"Impossible," Soi Fon commented, pulling her gun from the chest holster she wore.

There were no sounds for what felt like a long time. They just waited. Soi Fon climbed up the ladder slowly, intending to peek upstairs and see what was going on. Grimmjow took Nel's hand and watched her go. She opened the trap door and slowly disappeared into the upper part of the house.

"I knew there was no escaping, not really," Grimmjow muttered.

"It doesn't matter. You still did the right thing," Nel told him.

They heard the trap door again, but no one came down. It just remained open. Grimmjow swallowed and let go of Nel's hand. She waved at him not to move but he went ahead. He looked up and saw no one. He shrugged and started to climb the ladder to see what was going on.

As soon as he was about to reach the top, a foot came down and slammed him in the face, knocking him off the ladder to the floor. It didn't quite knock him out, so he groaned and rolled over, feeling a definite pain in his back where he'd hit the floor. He looked up to see Nnoitra staring down at him.

"Well, found you, bastard," he growled and Grimmjow tried to get to his feet.

"You fucker," Grimmjow said, managing to get to a standing position.

Nnoitra smirked. "We gonna do this the hard way?"

"You're not taking me back," Grimmjow told him. "Not without a fight."

"I ain't got time for this," he said and pulled the gun from the back of his pants and shot him in the leg.

Grimmjow cried out and Nel screamed for him to stop. He fell to the ground and grabbed his leg where it was bleeding profusely now. Nnoitra came over and dragged him to his feet painfully.

"Get moving before I shoot her, too," Nnoitra growled.

Grimmjow managed the ladder with some effort on his part. He got to the top and saw that Soi Fon and her second in command Ōmaeda were both unconscious, and hopefully still alive. He glared at Tesla and Ulquiorra who were standing by the door as he dropped to the floor again, unable to bear anymore weight on his leg.

"Why did you shoot him? This makes transportation more difficult," Ulquiorra said as he stared at Grimmjow. Nnoitra snorted and waved the gun at Nel to get her moving.

"He wanted to fight, so I took the fight outta him," Nnoitra told him. "Get yer ass up and get moving. Aizen wants to see you."

"I bet he does," Grimmjow muttered as he stumbled after them, limping on the wounded leg.

There was an SUV waiting outside for them. Grimmjow got painfully up into the back of it, followed by Nel and Tesla. The door was shut and Nnoitra got in to drive, letting Ulquiorra sit in the passenger seat. Grimmjow's head was still ringing from the gunshot, but he was mostly clear now. He looked over to see Nel crying quietly and put a bloodied hand on hers. There wasn't much else to do.

After what seemed like a long ride, they pulled into a parking garage and were ushered into the building. Grimmjow figured he wasn't going to have time to worry about the gunshot wound to his leg because he imagined he was going to be getting a bullet to the head shortly. He just had to hope they didn't kill Nel because of him. They were led to an elevator and soon into an office. Aizen looked up as they were pushed into the room. Grimmjow landed on his knee again, his leg giving out on him.

"Well, look who we have here," Aizen said as he stood up and walked around to stand in front of his desk.

"Fuck you," Grimmjow growled, looking up at him. "Kill me now and get it over with."

"Now where would the fun be in that?" Aizen said, smirking at him. His eyes moved over to Nel. "There's so much fun we can have before something messy like death, now isn't there?"

Nel looked at him. "No one is going to entertain you. So, you might as well kill us both."

"Oh, the sister isn't as weepy as she seems?" Aizen said, staring at her. "But then, you're an alpha. I wouldn't expect anything less from one. I'll take special pleasure in breaking you."

She snorted and turned away from him. "You won't get what you want. You'll never find that omega."

"Oh, I think I will. In fact, I might already have," Aizen told them, crossing his arms over his chest and looking back to Grimmjow. "You tried to save him and instead you merely condemned him."

"You don't know where he is. None of the Shinigami even know," Grimmjow growled, pushing himself up to his feet again.

Aizen smiled again. "Ah, that's where you're wrong. I don't know exactly where he is, but I know how to find him. It was that redheaded alpha named Renji Abarai that took him from the Seireitei. I didn't realize that he was undercover at Kuchiki Enterprises, but I'm not surprised. Now, where would he take someone to try and protect them?"

Grimmjow narrowed his eyes at him. "What do you know?"

"I know that a poor man like Abarai doesn't have someone to take him himself. But he can take him somewhere that his boss owns. So, all I have to do is figure out exactly which one of Kuchiki Enterprises' properties he's at. If he was smart, he took him out of town. But I doubt that. He's still here, waiting to be told he can move him again." Aizen looked all too smug about it.

"What are you going to do with him when you find him?" Nel demanded, glaring at him.

"What do I plan to do with him?" Aizen asked, looking at her. "First, I'll remind him who he belongs to. Then, if he's lucky, I won't truss him up and leave him in the walk-in freezer. Or maybe I'll let the boys have some fun with him. I'm sure that Barragan's boys could entertain themselves for quite a while with an available omega."

"If you fucking hurt him…" Grimmjow started.

"You'll what? You'll do nothing. In fact, I may make you watch, that way you can see for yourself the consequences of your actions. How would you like that? And all the time, I'll remind him that it was your fault that he's in the position of being punished by me. Yes, all your fault. If you'd just left well enough alone, two weeks and I would have come back for him, and nothing would have happened to him." Aizen shook his head. "Pathetic."

"Nothing would have happened to him? You mean until you decided to beat him again?" Grimmjow couldn't help saying.

Aizen glared at him. "That's my prerogative. He's _my_ omega to do what I want. I took him. And no alpha is going to take him away from me."

"Huh, well he's stuck with one now. That Renji Abarai is an alpha, remember? I wonder what's going to happen with those two closed up together?" Grimmjow said, smiling now. "If he hasn't already fucked him, I'd be surprised."

Aizen came forward and backhanded him, sending him to his knees again. "If he's touched my omega, he'll regret it in more ways than he can count."

-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-

Ichigo woke up with a headache and for a moment didn't know where he was. Then he remembered the day before. He groaned and rolled over in the unfamiliar bed and wondered what today was going to bring. He tossed all the covers off, though, because he was burning up. He felt his cheeks and he thought they felt warm to his touch. He felt odd, more than ever before. His head was rather clear this morning, so it wasn't the Omega Sickness. He slipped out of the bed and went to the bathroom. He used the toilet and washed his hands, looking in the mirror at himself. He was flushed red, that was for sure.

He pulled the yukata he was wearing tight, but he wanted to take it off. He was warm enough to be uncomfortable in the light garment. In fact, he wanted nothing more than to strip naked and sprawl on the bed and stay there. He shook his head and went back out into the main room to find Renji in the kitchen cooking something for breakfast. He sat down at the table, almost sweating. He just felt so strange.

"Morning, about time you got up. I was about to wake you up. It's after ten," Renji commented as he brought a plate of food out and sat it down in front of him.

"I guess I was tired," he said as he picked up the fork and looked at the plate for a minute.

"Something wrong with it?" Renji asked, sitting down on the opposite side of the table.

Ichigo shook his head and started eating, realizing how he was hungry after all. He ate quietly and then when he was done, he looked up to find Renji was staring across the table at him. He swallowed and picked up the glass of juice.

"You're flushed," Renji said with a sigh. "It's gonna be a long day," he muttered and picked up the plates to return them to the kitchen.

"What is that supposed to mean?" Ichigo said and frowned at him.

"It's obvious you're in a heat. So, today won't be easy. For either of us," he said as he disappeared into the kitchen.

Ichigo crossed his arms over his chest in a huff and looked away from the kitchen. Today wouldn't be a problem, he thought to himself. He'd make sure of it. Today wasn't going to be any different than yesterday, he told himself. At least, he tried to tell himself that. Every time he thought he was thinking about something else, his mind shifted back to sex, and he couldn't stop thinking about Renji's strong body. He was an alpha, so he would be bigger than Sōsuke had been. He wondered how much difference there was between a beta and an alpha…

Renji came back into the room, and immediately, his smell flooded Ichigo's senses. He gasped, feeling his cock twitch from smelling him. Why was he getting aroused all of a sudden? He got up and went back to the bedroom without saying anything else. He had to separate from Renji because he still wanted nothing more than to strip naked and tell him to take him right there at the table.

He figured it best he just go back to bed and wait it out. Surely, if he stayed in the bedroom and away from Renji, he wouldn't have any problems. He worried, though. The Sereitei had seals on their doors to keep the pheromones from leaking out or coming into the place. There were no such seals here. He tried to curl up and go back to sleep, but he soon found his body was not having it. He was in such a heightened state of arousal that he couldn't get comfortable.

Sitting up, he figured he would just have to take care of it, then it should be done. It wasn't like he never masturbated, but he wouldn't have wanted to do so in the room next to someone else like this, but he could think of no other way to get it to go away. So, he sat up against the headboard of the bed and pulled up the yukata enough that it was around his waist and he could stroke himself. Immediately, his body jerked at the touch. It was like he was twice as sensitive as he normally was. He panted a little and gently stroked his hand over himself. But for some reason, it wasn't working. He was no closer to coming than when he started, only now he was almost sore from it being so much touching when he was so very sensitive.

He huffed a breath through his nose and didn't know what to do. He jerked when he heard a knock on the door.

"Ah, what is it?" he asked, voice trembling as he spoke.

"Are ya alright? Ya left the table before I could say anything," he said through the door.

"I'm fine!" he snapped, almost crying from the need that was coursing through him. He wanted to open that door and breath in Renji's scent so bad he could almost taste it in his mouth.

"Sheesh, just checking on ya," Renji said, and Ichigo heard him walk away from the door.

He sighed and decided to try something else. He reached down and slipped a finger easily into himself. He blinked, feeling how wet he'd become. The fluid was leaking down onto the bed under him. He'd gotten wetter before, but never like this. He shifted and pushed another finger inside and began to push them back and forth. But he couldn't reach the right spot, he quickly realized. He whined out loud in frustration because nothing seemed to be helping.

"Ichigo?" he heard, and the door opened.

Ichigo quickly put his clothes down and grabbed the covers. "What are you doing? I said I was fine!"

Renji looked at him and frowned. "You're not fine. You look miserable."

"Yeah, well, I can't do much about it, now can I?" he said, figuring out already what kind of "supplies" everyone was talking about. No wonder it was necessary if he couldn't even stimulate himself enough to orgasm alone. Renji's smell, though, was permeating his senses.

Renji sighed, coming into the room further. "Do you want me to help?"

"Help?" Ichigo asked, eyes widening. "How exactly are you going to help?"

"I do have fingers, you know," he said. "I know it isn't ideal, but at least it would be enough to relieve the worst of your symptoms."

Ichigo didn't know what to think. He was offering him a way to possibly relieve the horrible arousal he was feeling, and in a way that wouldn't be nearly as intimate as actual sex. He would just be doing it clinically, like he was a doctor helping him out. He didn't want to even do that, but he also didn't know how long he could keep from jumping him at this rate.

He swallowed and looked at him. "Y-you'd do that for me?"

Renji nodded, coming in and sitting down beside him on the bed. "I can, if you want. I don't mind."

"But don't you, you know, have someone?" he asked, feeling his cheeks heat up at the thought of having someone else touch him. Even if it was for his own benefit.

Renji shook his head. "Nah. Just me on my own. I hook up with someone now and then, but no one ever stuck, so to speak," he told him.

"D-do you normally like males?" he wondered, looking up at him.

"Just depends on my mood," he said, smirking.

"Oh, okay, but you said you'd never been around an omega in heat? How do you know what to do and what will help?" Ichigo asked, not sure how a random alpha would come by this knowledge.

"I do work for Kuchiki Enterprises as undercover for the Shinigami, you know. We manufacture omega supplies, remember? That's why I was at that little convention Aizen puts on every year," he explained.

"So, that's why you said we didn't have the supplies, you knew I'd need…" he stopped, embarrassed to go on.

"An omega without an alpha has to have some way to stimulate deep enough to cause an orgasm, or they end up in severe pain from it, like you are now," he said with a far gentler expression than Ichigo expected from him.

Ichigo swallowed a ball in the back of his throat and nodded. "O-okay, if you think it will work, I don't know how long I can stand this."

"Alright, roll over on your belly," he said and patted the bed.

"You've done this before?" Ichigo asked suddenly.

"Not with an omega, but it ain't that different from a beta, you know," he said with a sigh.

Ichigo rolled over and laid down on his stomach, his hips right by Renji. He whimpered at the sensation of rubbing against the bed with his overly-sensitive cock. He buried his face in the pillow to hide the incredible embarrassment he was feeling.

Renji lifted the hem of the yukata over his back and he felt the air cool his skin. He felt Renji's hand slide over his ass and he wriggled against the bed again and let out a low moan.

"Open your legs a little," Renji said as he rested one hand on the back of his thigh.

"Okay," he said, doing as he asked.

He jerked when he touched him, finger sliding against the outside slowly. Why was he being so slow? He wanted him to hurry up and get this over with. He didn't say anything, though. He was doing a huge favor for him by doing this. He swallowed as he felt him finally slip one finger into him. He let out a deep sigh, feeling it all the way to his toes. Then he easily slid a second one into him and pressed his hand all the way in. Ichigo groaned, fisting the sheets on either side of the pillow because he'd never felt anything so good in his entire life. If this what being fingered in heat was like, what was being fucked like? He shook his head, rubbing against the sheets under him again.

"There, there, does that feel better? Can't reach yourself like this, can you?" Renji said, slowly stroking him inside with his deft fingers. He winced as he brushed his prostate and bit down on his lip. "That feel good?" he asked.

"Uh huh," Ichigo managed as he pushed back on Renji's hand, wanting even more inside him. But there was no more to go. His fingers were as deep as he could get them, and Ichigo whimpered piteously because it wasn't enough, nowhere near enough.

"Oh, is it not enough?" Renji asked softly, thrusting his fingers in and out as deep as he could.

"No, I want more," he said. "Please, I want more…"

"You'll come like this eventually," Renji told him. "It may take a little while, but it'll get there."

"No!" he said, shaking his head. "Please, I want you to just do it!"

"Just do what?" Renji asked, fingers still working in him and rubbing insistently against his prostate.

Ichigo didn't want to say it, but he would if he had to. He buried his head in the pillows and muttered it.

Renji snorted. "I couldn't understand that."

He lifted his head up and turned it to the side. "I said, just fuck me already."

Renji looked at him seriously. "Are you sure about that?"

"Yes, I'm sure! It's what I said!" he snapped, glaring at him now.

"I don't have any condoms, and if I knot, you could get pregnant. I've never done it, so I don't know if I can pull out in time," Renji pointed out, but his fingers were still working in him even as he spoke.

"I have to do something! I can't take it like this!" he said with a long, low moan. "Please, I want you to do it. I won't regret it. Whatever happens, happens. I don't care about tomorrow," he said, pushing back on Renji's hand again. "I'll deal with the consequences then!"

Renji chuckled, pulling his fingers out of him. "I figured this would happen before this was over," he said as he climbed up on the bed between his legs. "I just hope you're right and won't regret it."

Ichigo spread his legs wider for him and pushed his ass up toward him. He was making constant noises and panting shallowly. Renji's hands slipped over his hips and Ichigo could feel something bigger pressing against him now. He was really going to do it, he thought, brain desperately trying to make some logical sense of the issue. But there was no logic to be had right then.

Then, he felt him slide easily inside. He was bigger than Sōsuke, by quite a bit, he noted as he pushed back against him with a moan. Despite the size, it didn't hurt at all, it just felt nice and filling. He had never been taken so gently before, either. Sōsuke was always so rough and slamming into him. This was completely different. He whined loudly as he kept pushing deeper into him. It was like he was going to go right through his stomach if he didn't stop soon.

"Oh, oh, there," Ichigo said, feeling himself dripping onto the sheets underneath him.

"That's good?" Renji asked, pulling back and sliding forward again, still slow and steady.

"Ung," Ichigo could barely articulate as he squeezed the pillow in his arms under his head.

"It's so wet and slippery," Renji told him as he began to thrust back and forth a little faster. "No wonder that one lube uses the tag line that it's as slick as an omega in heat."

Ichigo could care less about lubes right then, though. He just wanted him to fuck him harder. He whined again and pushed back again.

"Please, more, more," he gasped out.

"You sure? I can't be sure if I start going that I'll be able to pull out in time," Renji told him as he slipped back and forth a few more times at the slow, steady pace he'd used.

"I don't care!" he said, knowing right then what he wanted. "Just please, fuck me!"

Renji moved his hands to Ichigo's hips and began to move faster. It wasn't a lot at first, but it was getting there for Ichigo. He was nonstop moaning and whimpering by now and begging him to give him more. He couldn't say anything clearly, but he kept meeting his thrusts. Renji sped up some, stroking against his prostate at a nice angle. It was taking so much longer than Ichigo ever remembered to climax for some reason, but he felt Renji's nails digging into his hips as he held him tightly. That made him leak even more as he felt the stinging pain there.

"I'm close, do you want me to pull out now?" Renji asked as he started to slow a bit.

"No! Finish this!" Ichigo snapped, pushing back on him again. "Don't pull out!"

Renji hesitated but continued, thrusting hard and deep into him until a new feeling began to wash over him that he was unfamiliar with. Too late, he realized it was because he was knotting.

"Ah, shit," he muttered as he couldn't move anymore. "I'm sorry, I tried to pull out, but I can't now," he said.

Ichigo though, barely heard him as he felt the knot swelling inside him. It was like it pressed on his prostate and every point in between. He jerked as he came suddenly, unable to stop it even if he tried. Renji gasped, his own body reacting to Ichigo's orgasm and going over the edge, releasing inside him. He could move a little he found and as he did, Ichigo moaned with each motion until Renji felt him crest again, triggering another climax for him as well. Renji then leaned over and grasped him in front and started to stroke him, finding him still hard despite coming twice already. He couldn't say anything, he was still knotted inside him, and hadn't gone down at all.

"Does it feel that good?" Renji asked as he worked his fingers over him.

"Hmmm," Ichigo hummed and began bucking his hips as much as he could into his hand.

"You feel amazing inside," Renji told him, sliding his hand up and down his length steadily increasing in speed. "I've never felt anything like it. It doesn't compare to being with a beta, there's nothing like this," he breathed out.

Ichigo couldn't say it, but it was also amazing to him as well. Being with Sōsuke had been good, but this felt so right, as though it was the way it was supposed to be. This felt simply phenomenal, and that was the only way to describe it. He let out a loud noise as he felt himself coming again, this time in Renji's hand. Renji groaned as his body tightened up on him again, pulling him into a third orgasm. But this time, he felt completed, like it was the last one. He soon could pull back again as the knot started to go down and then he pulled out of him, watching as fluids dripped from him before he fell forward into the bed.

"Oh, my god," Ichigo whispered. "That was the most amazing thing that's ever happened to me. I can't believe how good it felt."

"Yeah, it was pretty amazing alright," he said, rubbing the base of his spine as he spoke.

"I can't even think straight right now," Ichigo said, turning onto his back and looking up at Renji.

There was something there, though, something between them. Ichigo couldn't name it, but it was more than a casual encounter and he knew it. He also knew today wasn't over yet. He could already feel the warmth starting to build up again. He gasped, reaching down as his cock started to twitch again.

Renji stared at him. "Already?"

"I can't help it!" he whined, sounding despondent.

"You are one needy damn omega, aren't you?" Renji said, but he had a soft smile on his face.

Ichigo swallowed and then sat up, untying the yukata and taking it off. It was soiled anyway. He looked at Renji and Renji moved closer to him, reaching up and cupping his face.

"I'll take responsibility for it. Whatever happens," he said softly, tracing a thumb over Ichigo's lips. "I know this is backwards, but can I kiss you?"

"Yeah," Ichigo whispered, locking eyes with him, captivated by the rich color of Renji's eyes.

He leaned in and gently kissed at his lips, licking at the seam until Ichigo opened his mouth to let him in. He pressed his tongue against him, sliding it around and reaching every point he could reach in his mouth. They kissed like that until Ichigo pulled away, panting for breath. He stared at him with hooded eyes and then kissed him again, this time plundering Renji's mouth with his tongue. Renji put his arms around him, pulling him close as he kept contact with his mouth. After a long time of kissing, they parted, and Ichigo was throbbing again. He looked down to see Renji was also in the same state.

"That's how big you are?" he gasped, looking down at him for a second before reaching out with his hands to touch him. "No wonder it felt like you were in my stomach," he muttered, sliding his fingers along the shaft and around the head.

"Hmm, yeah. Come here, I want to fill you up again already," Renji said and pulled Ichigo over onto his lap, easily sliding back into him once more.

It didn't take long for Ichigo to figure out what to do as he bounced on him, moaning every time he came all the way down on Renji's lap. After a while, Renji felt the same sensation of the knotting coming on, and he grabbed Ichigo's hips and pushed him down, feeling it grow within him. Ichigo's legs flexed around his waist and he held onto him as he wriggled on his lap as the knot pressed against everything sensitive. Again, they went several times before they could separate. This time, though, Ichigo was tired.

"I need a bath," he said, feeling rather gross at the moment. "Come with me?" he asked.

"Yeah," Renji answered, shucking his shirt over his head and dropping his pants off his hips all the way now.

They bathed, spending almost as much time going another round in the water as they did washing each other off. By the time they were done, they were both exhausted, and Ichigo didn't think he could move, let alone think about doing it again yet.

"Come on, there's fresh sheets in the cabinet," Renji said and walked over to pull them out. He quickly stripped the bed and replaced the sheet. "Want to rest for a while?" he asked and Ichigo didn't have to be asked again, he crawled up into the bed and fell into the clean sheets.

Renji got in beside him, both still naked from the bath. Ichigo immediately moved closer to him, and Renji put his arms around him, pulling him in close to him. Ichigo rested his head on Renji's chest and was quiet for a moment.

"What's this mean?" he asked.

"What do ya mean?" Renji replied as he stroked a hand through Ichigo's hair.

"I mean, are you my alpha now?" he asked, almost too quietly to be heard.

Renji squeezed him against him tightly. "Looks that way. I wasn't lookin' for an omega, but sometimes life just works out a different way than we think it will."

"I don't even really know you," he said, starting to worry about it.

"I know." Renji paused and took a deep breath. "But we can learn more about each other as we go along. I'm not abandoning you, not for anything."


	5. Chapter 5

Jūshirō arrived at the new Seireitei Shelter early. He looked at the building, knowing no one would make the connection to the shelter at all like this. It would take some getting used to, though, for everyone. He was thankful that Yukio had been able to put them into a good place.

From the street, the place was called the Doll House, with a heart between the two words. It was a maid café, and out of the way but reasonably busy given any time of day. He walked up to the door, because the café itself wasn't open yet. He saw the keypad beside the door, and he put in the code he'd been given the day before. The door unlocked and he entered the darkened café. As he entered an automatic light came on that lit up the path to the door leading upstairs.

The café itself was done in shades of pink and white with the walls decorated with various dolls and dollhouses. The owner, Yukio's alpha Riruka, dressed the waitresses in light pink maid outfits with their choice of shoes to go with them. Lisa and Mashiro from Shinji's group had taken up jobs in the place. He knew that Riruka also employed a security guard named Giriko that would be there during the day.

He came to the door, and again had to put in a code to get upstairs. He headed up there and found that Rukia had actually beat him this morning.

"Captain, sir!" she said, standing up. "I wasn't sure if you'd be in today."

"I'm fine, the worst of it is over," he said with a soft grin. "How did moving everyone into this place go?"

"Well, it's been a little strange because the set up is different than the office space we were using. The décor is cozy, though," she said, gesturing around where the cute theme continued from downstairs.

"How did you manage to get everything set up so far?" he asked.

They had set a desk in the foyer that the stairs opened up into where Rukia had been sitting. "We've got six rooms up here; all are pretty big. There's a third level with two large rooms, too. We've put beds in three of the rooms, your office in another, and converted one into a living room area. The last one down here has been made into a kitchen and dining room. We took the two big rooms upstairs and converted them into an exam room and office for Orihime and Uryū. We've got a total of four bunks in each bedroom, so we have a total capacity of twelve. Good thing all the beds we had at the other place were stackable into bunk beds or we wouldn't have been able to keep that many open spaces."

"Very good," Jūshirō said, smiling. "I know it will be a little difficult changing when we had just gotten situated in the other place, but we have to keep everyone safe."

"Speaking of keeping everyone safe, have you heard anything about Ichigo and Renji?" she asked, frowning.

"I wish I could say I had, but Renji was told to take him off grid so no one in our ranks even would know where he was," Jūshirō said smiling at her. "I'm sure they're fine, though."

"You went into heat, so I'm sure the omega did too," she said, arching a brow.

"You don't think Renji would do anything, do you?" he asked, knowing that she had known Renji since they were children.

She shook her head. "He wouldn't unless the omega was willing, but I doubt he would be able to resist if he asked him."

"Not many can," Jūshirō sighed, thinking of his own needs. "I just hope nothing bad comes of it, either way. If he did end up mating with that omega, it could cause complications, but we'll deal with it when and if it happens."

"Renji will take responsibility, if it did happen," Rukia said. "I'm sure of it. He wouldn't shirk that, especially considering that omega hasn't been on contraception."

"Even if he had been, there's not a hundred percent guarantee that it will work," Jūshirō said, worried about that ten percent chance himself.

"Sir, what happens now?" she asked.

Jūshirō let out a deep sigh. "We wait until we—"

He was cut off by his phone ringing. He pulled it out to see it was Shunsui. Considering that they both had just gone to work, a phone call this early was not a good sign.

"Shunsui?" he asked as he answered.

"Bad news. The safehouse where they had Grimmjow and his sister was raided. They got them," he said quickly.

"Is Soi Fon alright?" he asked, worried for the woman who ran the internal affairs division.

"She got knocked out, but she's going to be fine. They knew exactly where to go. We've got to find the mole we have, or this is not going to stop. We're just lucky the omega is off grid. You haven't heard anything on Abarai and the omega, have you?"

"We were just talking about that, and I haven't heard anything yet, so we have to hope they're safe." Jūshirō looked over at Rukia.

"Is the new Sereitei location secure?" Shunsui asked.

"It is. Not as secure as the old one, but it blends in with the area around it. No one would look for a shelter in a place like this," Jūshirō told him. "It's a good choice."

"Are you still at three residents?" Shunsui asked.

"Yeah, no new acquisitions to the shelter while I was out," Jūshirō told him as he looked over the chart that detailed who was in house. Just Rose, Tsukishima, and Ggio in right then.

"With Grimmjow and Nel gone, we have no leverage against Aizen. We've got to get them back, or else we're going to have no case," Shunsui sighed. "Grimmjow was what the case was hinging on."

Jūshirō thought about it a second. "No matter what, with our ranks compromised, we're stuck. Until we can locate whoever is leaking information to him. It has to be someone in the higher ranks, or someone that has access to information easily to have known where Soi Fon took Grimmjow and Nel."

"That's the problem. No one but you and I know the new location of the Seireitei, not even the head captain knows it yet, so we know that information is safe." Shunsui sighed again. "Alright, just stay safe. I'll call you when I know anything more about the situation."

Jūshirō put away the phone and smiled slightly at Rukia. "Show me which room is my office, and I'll get to work on paperwork. I'm sure I've got a lot with the switch in locations."

"Okay," Rukia said and led him to the room they'd set up as his office. He sat down and started going through the tray of papers for the day.

At nearly noon, there was a knock on the door, and Jūshirō looked up.

"Enter," he called.

Yukio and Wonderweiss had come by. Yukio smiled at him. "Hey, Captain. I wanted to see what you thought of everything so far."

"Well, first, I want to thank you and Riruka for letting us use the space for the shelter. And second, the décor is…interesting." He looked up at the wall where there was a display of dolls.

Yukio nodded. "Yeah, Riruka does like her cute stuff," he said.

Wonderweiss came forward and deposited the bearded dragon Fuwa in front of Jūshirō on his desk. Jūshirō looked down to see he was in a tiny little maid outfit.

"The girls say Fuwa is their unofficial mascot now," Wonderweiss told him.

Jūshirō never knew what to do with the creature, but he smiled at Wonderweiss and scratched it on the head under the little maid hat. He didn't know how everything was going to work out, but so far things were looking up for them.

-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-

Aizen sat at his desk and waited for reports to come in about the search for his omega. He would find him no matter what, he had decided. No one took something from him, and he made sure of it. He would have that omega back one way or another, even if he had to kill him to get him back.

"Sir, we have a report from a couple of the teams. So far, no luck in any of the locations they've been to," the secretary said from the doorway.

"Tell them to continue to the next locations," he said as he stood up. "I think I'm going to visit our dear friend Grimmjow."

So far, they had broken into five of Kuchiki's properties and found them empty. Aizen was sure that he was right, and the redheaded alpha would take him to one of them. It was the only play that made sense. He made his way down to the room with the cells and came in to hear rough breathing and knew that Grimmjow had to be in incredible amounts of pain from his leg. He smiled. That made him exceedingly happy. In the cell next to him, his sister was seated. She was truly an alpha, though, because so far there was no sign of her breaking down.

"Well, hello there my little birdies. How are the cages?" he said as he came up to the bars of Grimmjow's cell.

"Fuck you. Kill me and get it over with," Grimmjow told him.

"Where's the fun in that?" Aizen asked. "I intend to enjoy myself quite a bit. Breaking you and your sister is part of my fun, after all."

"What the hell are you keeping us alive for?" Nel asked from her cell, standing and coming to the bars. "We're of no use to you alive."

"I just told you—fun. You see, Grimmjow here ruined a perfectly good plan, and now I have to hurt him for it. I had everything in line, and he had to go and mess with it." Aizen arched a brow. "All over an omega."

"You were beating him, and one of these days, you were going to go to far, and kill him," Grimmjow growled.

"Someone that works for me has a moral compass," Aizen said, sighing. "A shame. When I hired you to do the job of security, I did it in hopes that you would have no morals at all, and you proved me wrong. I trusted you even with my omega."

"You didn't care about that omega, you never have. He was just a tool for you," Grimmjow said.

"Well, you aren't wrong," Aizen admitted. "Love is not something I felt for him. He was an excellent test subject though. He has unique physiology, you know. Something that is very rare in omegas and is actually the reason why so few omegas contract omega sickness."

"You know this?" Grimmjow snapped his head up to stare at him, disbelieving what he was saying.

"Oh, yes. They're looking for something that links the omegas that suffer, but they'll never find it because they're looking in the wrong place. I found it a long time ago, before the omega sickness ever became a thing. A very rare genetic mutation. It makes them normally highly susceptible to impregnation. And it also reacts to certain chemicals." Aizen smirked. "Did you know I run several chemical manufacturers?"

"You _are_ the cause of the omega sickness, aren't you?" Nel whispered. "You did it somehow."

"It's actually pretty simple, like most successful things. Under a shell company, I own a little chemical manufacturer called Dangai Chemicals. That company makes the inert compounds found in almost all pharmaceuticals manufactured in the nation. Not just omega drugs, but all of them. So, different companies buy from Dangai, and different medications get dosed with the chemical that effects specific omegas." He smiled at them. "They take even a pain killer, and they get dosed with the chemical that reacts with the specific gene. Totally harmless to everyone else, as far as I know."

"As far as you know?" Grimmjow said, staring at him openly. "You don't even know how safe it is?"

"It doesn't matter. I don't care about anyone else, and anything I buy comes from places I know that don't use Dangai Chemicals in their productions," Aizen shrugged. "What do I care if it affects more people? No one has been able to trace it back to Dangai Chemicals and they've been looking for years. Like I said, they're just looking in the wrong place."

"You're despicable," Nel said, glaring at him. "To put people in danger like that is the worst thing you could do."

"Oh, I can do worse. I don't know if your brother told you, but now I have Omega Relief coming out. A drug specifically to counteract the sickness caused by the other chemical. Of course, the price is high. And most insurances won't cover it for a long time. Fortunately, there's Omega X on the streets," Aizen smirked as he spoke, proud of his plan.

"You've built yourself a marker for both a legal and illegal drug," Nel said softly. "One that won't affect everyone, but for omegas, you'll devastate them. Why?"

"Why?" Aizen asked. "Why what?"

"Why would you do something like this? Why would you want to harm so many omegas who have done nothing wrong?" Nel demanded.

"They're omegas, that's enough."

"What do you have against alphas and omegas?" Grimmjow asked. "You've always hated them, and there's no good reason that I can see."

"I have my reasons," he snarled. "I'm done with this discussion," he said and turned and left suddenly, leaving both Nel and Grimmjow wondering what exactly that had been all about.

-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-

Ichigo spent the next day in bed with Renji. Honestly, he didn't want to leave it. For the first time in his life, he felt completely safe and comfortable with someone, and it was honestly the best feeling in the world. It didn't hurt that sex with him was frankly amazing. By the time his heat faded, Ichigo lost count of how many times they'd done it. Renji never ran out of stamina, though.

Ichigo propped himself up on his arm and looked down into Renji's face. The redhead looked back at him and smirked. "What is it?"

"I was just wondering about you," Ichigo said.

"What about me?" Renji returned.

"Well, I don't know anything about you. Who's your best friend? What are they like?" he wondered.

Renji frowned, tattooed brows scrunching for a second. "I guess that would be a guy named Shūhei Hisagi. He's a good guy, sometimes gloomy about life, but you know. Then I know a guy named Izuru Kira. He's always kinda gloomy. I tell him he never got through his emo phase. We all kind of hang around a girl named Momo Hinamori. She's kinda off, though, never could put my finger on it. And you met my friend Rukia that works at the Seireitei. I've known her since I was a kid."

"I don't have a best friend," Ichigo said sadly. "At least, not anymore. My best friends in school were a girl that had a crush me named Orihime Inoue, a nerdy guy with glasses named Uryū Ishida, and my best friend would have been Yasutora Sado, or Chad as we all called him."

"What happened to them?" Renji asked, reaching out and running a hand through Ichigo's hair gently.

"I went to work for Las Noches Corp right after high school and moved out on my own. I had to get out of there; I was tired of taking up space in my dad's home, and I felt like I needed to be on my own." Ichigo paused to turn into Renji's hand. "It's hard as an omega, you know. Because no one expects you to ever be independent. So, I tried hard to do it. I guess, in the end, I couldn't."

Renji gave him a gentle smile now. "Don't feel that way. The omega sickness takes a lot of omegas out of life for a while."

"But it's not just that. Omegas, we're not expected to be on our own. It's just expected we'll have an alpha that takes care of us our entire life. You have no idea what it's like to not have agency over your own life like that. To know that no matter what, your life belongs to another person eventually." He put his head on Renji's chest. "And now I have an alpha."

"Is it that bad, to have someone takin' care of ya?" Renji asked, stroking a hand through his hair again.

Ichigo smiled against him. "I guess not. I mean, especially not if it's you."

"I always thought I'd hate it, y'know," Renji sighed.

"Hate what?" Ichigo asked, gripping his arm over his stomach tightly.

"Being someone's alpha. I thought omegas were weak willed, whiney, and clingy. I mean, Captain Ukitake isn't, but I don't know him when he's with Captain Kyōraku alone. And Captain Soi Fon seems like she's pretty strong willed, but again, I've never seen her in private with her alpha Yoruichi. Our friend Momo is an omega, and honestly, I'm not sure how she became a lieutenant. She's always just followed anything I said we should do without question, never challenged me, and I always found it to be annoying, but not you," he said, squeezing Ichigo tightly. "You'll tell me to fuck off if ya need to."

Ichigo chuckled a little. "So, it's a good think I'm not like those omegas you don't like, huh?"

"Very good thing," Renji said. "We should get up, it's almost dinner time. We've been in bed most the day," he said, but made no move to get up yet.

"I didn't know heats would be so…intense," Ichigo said, sitting up slowly and stretching his arms over his head.

Renji snorted. "Intense is one way to put it. I've never been able to get it up so quickly in my life. They're not kidding about that pheromone shit."

"Come on, I'm hungry. Let's eat something," Ichigo said, sliding out of the bed and reaching for the yukata that he'd tossed at some point.

"Yeah, how's your head by the way? The omega sickness?" Renji asked, sitting up on the other side of the bed, grabbing his jeans and sliding them on.

Ichigo stopped as he finished tying his obi. "Strange, but it hasn't seemed to bother me since the heat started."

"Maybe it pushes back the symptoms," Renji said. "How long have you been sick with it?"

"A couple years. If it weren't for the omega sickness, I would have never ended up with Sōsuke, though," Ichigo said as they both headed out of the bedroom into the living area.

Renji looked at him. "What do you mean?"

"Well, when I got sick, I ended up sleeping with him. I don't remember it, you know, I just remember waking up in his bedroom and I knew what had happened somehow. He was sorry, said he didn't realize I wasn't aware of what was happening," he explained.

"That makes no sense," Renji said as Ichigo sat down at the dining table.

Ichigo looked at him sharply. "What do you mean?"

"The brain fog, yeah, but it usually starts slow. Like little things start happening. I've never known anyone that just suddenly lost a whole chunk of time, and I've worked for Kuchiki with the omega initiatives for a long time now," Renji said, stepping in the kitchen and finding a box of those cheap toaster pastries.

"It had to be that. After that, the omega sickness started affecting me more and more, and I stopped being able to work and had to move in with Sōsuke because I didn't want to go back to my father," Ichigo said as Renji came back and handed him a pastry.

Renji stared at him and shook his head. "Something about the whole thing just doesn't add up, and it all goes back to Aizen. There's a rumor that someone was behind the omega sickness, and now that Las Noches seems to be working on a cure for it, it seems suspect to me, at least."

Ichigo frowned as he nibbled on the pastry. "But how? They've tested all the meds that we take, contraception and heat suppressants, and no one can come up with a commonality. There's different manufacturers for the meds, so no one has been able to link anyone that suffers from it."

"I don't know how, but I know that something is going on and has been for a while now. There's something that they're missing, some component that—"

The sound of a gunshot tearing through the lock on the door to the apartment startled both of them. Renji didn't have his gun; he was still shirtless and had left it by the door. He gasped and stood up to get between Ichigo and whoever it was.

"Knock, knock, anyone home?" came a voice and an extremely tall man with an eyepatch over his eye came in the room followed by five or six other men with guns. "Oh, jackpot!"

"N-Nnoitra!" Ichigo stammered, stepping back almost into the wall.

Nnoitra held the gun even at Renji and grinned a wide smile. "Hey there, Red. By the smell, you and Aizen's omega been having some fun, now haven't you? I can't blame ya, really. Locked up with a horny omega in heat, what's an alpha to do besides fuck them senseless?"

Ichigo gasped, knowing that the only one of Sōsuke's men that could have known that would be Nnoitra. He was the only alpha in his group. To be found by him of all people was the worst luck of all. He couldn't hide what had happened from him no matter what he tried. The pheromones spoke for themselves.

Renji looked ready to spring, but he stayed still, obviously knowing there was no way he could take out seven men with guns on him. Nnoitra walked past him to Ichigo and grabbed his face.

"Hey there, pretty boy. Have fun, did we? Can't tell you how long I've wanted to fuck you but knew that Aizen would kill me if I tried. Should I take advantage of the treat before me?" he said, smiling again with that too wide grin.

"Don't fucking touch him!" Renji said and Nnoitra turned, gun trained on Renji now.

"Back up, alpha boy. I hope you enjoyed fucking him, because it's the last thing you'll do once Aizen finds out what happened here. But, not like Aizen can tell the difference in my scent and yours…" he said, turning back to Ichigo who was staring wide eyed at him. "What do you say? Should I show you how a real alpha fucks?"

"Please, no," he said. "D-don't, please."

"Yeah, you're not horny anymore, are ya? Bet you're not even slick enough to fuck. Well, better get your bitch ass back to the boss. Boys, get Red," he said and grabbed Ichigo by the upper arm, tugging him behind him as the other men surrounded and grabbed Renji and zip tying his wrists together.

They were both walked out to a waiting van, where they were shoved in the back with the gun wielding men. Back on the table in the apartment, Renji's phone beeped. It was a 911 text message.

 _You're not safe. Move from your location. Stay on the move._

A few minutes later, they pulled into the building that had the penthouse in it. Ichigo was scared out of his mind because he knew he was in trouble, more trouble than he'd ever been before. His heart was pounding in his chest. He kept looking at Renji, trying to get more of his smell to calm himself, but it wasn't helping much. What was Sōsuke going to do?

They were both roughly pulled from the van and taken up the elevator to the top floor by Nnoitra. When the door opened, Nnoitra shoved both of them out into the room and Ichigo saw Sōsuke standing by the big windows.

"Well, if it isn't my errant omega," he said, turning around to face them.

"Um, sir, you ain't gonna wanna hear it, but…" Nnoitra trailed off, looking at Renji.

Sōsuke's face changed into fury quickly from neutral. "You touched him."

"He's my omega now, and there's nothing you can do about it, you bastard!" Renji spat at him. "I've bonded him."

Sōsuke sucked his teeth for a second then stepped forward and landed a hard right on Renji's face, sending him to his knees. Sōsuke turned and grabbed Ichigo by the front of the yukata and jerked him forward.

"And you. You let another man touch you when you are _mine_."

"I don't belong to you!" Ichigo said, voice stronger than he expected. "I don't belong to anyone! I'm making my own choices now, not you anymore."

Sōsuke growled and shoved him backward as he stepped away. "What should I do with you? You're probably pregnant now unless you were careful." When Ichigo only blushed in response, Sōsuke shook his head. "Of course, you weren't careful. Not only did you let him fuck you, you let him _knot_ you. What were you thinking? You may be stupid, but even you know that there's an eighty percent chance of pregnancy when knotting."

"I don't care! Renji is my alpha and there's nothing you can do about it! You can beat me, kill me, whatever, and it won't change that fact!" Ichigo snapped at him, still surprised at his own voice being as strong as it was.

Sōsuke turned and glared at him. "Oh, you're right. I can't change that. You're soiled now. The only omega I want is one that hasn't been tainted by an alpha. That means I don't want you anymore. Do you understand now? I don't care what happens to you. So, the question is, what do I do with a possibly pregnant omega that I despise and want to suffer?"

"Do whatever you want. It won't change things," Ichigo said, looking down, knowing that most likely his life was forfeit.

"I think some of the men might be interested in spending some quality time with you," he said, looking up at Nnoitra who was grinning in return. "What do you think? Would you like to spend some time with some of them? Perhaps I'll just turn you into the building whore, hand you off to whoever wants you. That seems appropriate to your station."

"You fucking bastard!" Renji snarled, jerking out of Nnoitra's grip and lunging for Sōsuke.

Sōsuke side stepped him and turned, landing another punch across his face. "Oh, you be quiet. I haven't decided what to do with you, either. Obviously, you can't live knowing who I am."

Renji got to his knees. "The Shinigami all know who you are."

"Oh, I know that. My informant inside has told me all about what Grimmjow said. He's suffering himself right now in a cell in lower level. I haven't killed him yet, mostly because I want to make him suffer more. And I'll do the same with you. Making you suffer, that is. You'll all suffer for turning against me," he said, grabbing Renji by the hair and hauling him to his feet again.

He looked at Nnoitra. "Toss the Shinigami in the cell next to Grimmjow. As far as Ichigo, well, I've got long reaching plans for you now. Not only can you entertain some of the men, you'll be the perfect test subject for Omega X, especially if you're pregnant. Then, when you have the bastard child, I'll use it for my own work, experimenting on some new children's drugs."

"No, Sōsuke, please, I love you still!" Ichigo tried.

"I don't care anymore. Take him to Barragan's boys. They can have him first. The let Grimmjow's boys have a shot. I don't care what they do with him," he said, waving a hand dismissively at them.


End file.
